Belarus Forces Ryanair Plane to Land in Minsk to Arrest Journalist

Belarus has forced a Ryanair plane to land in Minsk by citing a ‘bomb threat’ in order to arrest an opposition journalist on board.

Ryanair

Ryanair flight FR4978 was on its way from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania when the crew was informed of a possible bomb threat by Belarussian air traffic control (ATC).

Despite being closer to tits destination of Vilnius than to Minsk, Belarussian ATC ordered the Ryanair Boeing 737-800 to land at Minsk Airport.

According to reports, MiG fighter aircraft were even scrambled to block the Ryanair plane from reaching Lithuanian airspace and to force it to land in Minsk.

Arrest

Upon landing at Minsk Airport, the Belorussian authorities arrested one of the passengers on board the flight: Roman Protasevich.

Protasevich was the editor of Belarus’ largest Telegram channel called ‘Nexta’, which played a vital role in organising protests against Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko after he won an election which were widely condemned as fraudulent and held under repressive conditions.

Lukashenko had put Protasevich on a “terrorist watch-list” and declared his Telegram channel as “extremist materials” in a crackdown on opposition forces, social media and the free press.

Protasevich could potentially be given the death penalty by the Belarussian regime being an outspoken opposition figure.

BREAKING! The regime landed @Ryanair plane, which was flying from Athens to Vilnius,in order to arrest the famous Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich. In Belarus, he faces the death penalty. Belarus has seized a plane,put passengers in danger, in order to repress an opponent pic.twitter.com/TEv22to5XM

— Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) May 23, 2021

Ryanair Boeing 737 FR4978 Athens-Vilnius landed after bomb threat at the Minsk National Airport. Roman Protasevich, ex chief editor of @NEXTA_EN, was on the board. He is reported to be detained https://t.co/EzXh9NOaNj pic.twitter.com/XjCOn5z20h via @OnlinerBY

— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) May 23, 2021

Questions

It obviously seemed that the ‘bomb scare’ was just a ruse in order to arrest Protasevich, which is not only an outrageous, evil act but also a major escalation in what already is an all-out crackdown on free speech in Belarus.

This whole bomb scare and subsequent diversion to Minsk also raises many questions, such as:

– How did the Belarussian authorities know that Protasevich was on board the plane?
– Did the Ryanair captain knew that Protasevich was on board and that he might be arrested upon landing in Minsk?
– Did Protasevich tried to warn the crew after he learned that the plane would be diverted to Minsk?
– What kind of force or forceful language did Belarussian ATC and the scrambled MiGs use to force the Ryanair plane to land?

This, via @baj_by, is reportedly a picture of Protasevich after Belarus forced his plane to land. Can only imagine what he must have felt when he saw the fighter jets and realized where he was about to wind up pic.twitter.com/PRYl2h7hhk

— max seddon (@maxseddon) May 23, 2021

Pilot’s perspective

From a pilot’s perspective this is of course a tricky situation. It could very well be the case that the pilots never knew that Protasevich was on board and were oblivious about the entire situation.

After all, the primary concern of a pilot is the safety of all passengers on board. Besides, pilots must obey ATC commands at all time.

Even if the pilot might have known that the ‘bomb scare’ was seemingly just a ploy to arrest a passenger on the plane, it would still be tricky to make a dash for Lithuanian airspace as with MiG fighter jets around him the pilot could have endangered all passengers on board.

Actions

Of course, this whole situation should not remain without consequences. At the very least, aviation authorities should investigate this matter and speak out against it.

The same also counts for the European Union, which should not tolerate an aircraft operating an intra-EU flight basically being hijacked by an evil regime.

It’s immensely sad to see and hear stories of innocent people being arrested, thrown into jail and even being beaten up and tortured just for speaking their mind. The totalitarian regime even hunts down people wearing red-and-white socks or those who have their homes painted in red and white colours as they symbolise the colours of the opposition flag.

Belarus

Belarus has always been described as the last dictatorship of Europe and its capital Minsk really is some kind of a Soviet open-air museum, having tons of Stalinist architectural relics.

I’ve visited Belarus a couple of times in the last decade, and always had a pleasant stay in the country as the people are wonderful and there are some interesting sights to see.

Even though the country was never democratic nor fully open and free back then, the situation has regressed significantly during the last year.

I can only hope for the situation to improve soon and for Belarussians to regain their freedom.

UPDATE:

If true, this makes the whole situation even more bizarre and horrific than it already is…

insisting there’s an IED onboard. Eventually the crew was forced to send out SOS (literally moments before the plane would've left Belarus airspace). MiG-29 took off and escorted it to Minsk. Security services entered the plane and arrested Protasevich. (2/2)

— Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) May 23, 2021

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