DISINFO: Ryanair flight 4879: The Belarusian authorities acted in full compliance with international flight safety standards
SUMMARY
Formally speaking, the Belarusian authorities acted in full compliance with the requirements of international flight safety standards.
RESPONSE
It is not true that Belarus acted in accordance with international law in the Ryanair forced landing incident which took place on 23 May 2021. This claim was neither counterbalanced nor critically challenged.
Ryanair flight FR4978 was intercepted by military jets while en route from Athens to Vilnius. Minsk air control reported a bomb threat and requested the aircraft divert to Minsk. A Belarus Air Force MiG-29 forced the plane to divert to Minsk, even though Vilnius airport was much closer.
Article 1 of the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (aka Montreal Convention), which Belarus is a party to, states that any person commits an offence if he unlawfully and intentionally “communicates information which he knows to be false, thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight.” Accordingly, Belarus has committed a serious violation of the international treaty by reporting a bomb threat and tailing the aircraft forcing it to land in Minsk airport instead of more nearby airports. The incident is investigated as an act of terrorism by Lithuanian authorities.
Consequently, Article 10 of the convention states that when, due to the commission of one of the offences mentioned in Article 1, a flight has been delayed or interrupted, any Contracting State in whose territory the aircraft or passengers or crew are present shall facilitate the continuation of the journey of the passengers and crew as soon as practicable, and shall without delay return the aircraft and its cargo to the persons lawfully entitled to possession. Belarus failed to facilitate the continuation of the passengers' journey by arresting a Belarusian opposition journalist, who was a passenger onboard the aircraft and is wanted in Belarus for unfounded charges of extremism. The plane was also kept at the airport for seven hours before allowed to continue to Vilnius.
Willie Walsh, the director of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), wrote that “IATA strongly condemns any interference or requirement for landing of civil aviation operations that is inconsistent with the rules of international law". The statement said that the details of the event are not clear and called for a full investigation by competent international authorities.
On 24 May 2021, in a declaration on behalf of the EU on the forced diversion of Ryanair flight FR4978 to Minsk on 23 May 2021, the High Representative called for the immediate release of detained journalist Mr Pratasevich. This was followed by a European Council statement, in which the EU leaders called for targeted individual and economic sanctions as well as a ban on flights over EU airspace by Belarusian airlines as well as preventing these flights from accessing airports in the EU airports.