Ryanair CEO Calls Belarus Flight Diversion a 'Premeditated Hijacking'
May 27 2021 - 3:19PM
Dow Jones News
By Benjamin Katz and Daniel Michaels
Ryanair Holdings PLC rejected Belarus's account of the diversion
of one of its planes Sunday, angrily condemning the forced landing
in a private letter and calling on the government to identify three
passengers the company said it suspects are security-services
agents.
The letter, which hasn't previously been reported, was sent
earlier this week by Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary to the
director of Belarus's department of aviation. In the letter,
reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. O'Leary described the
incident as a "premeditated and unlawful" hijacking and "an illegal
and reprehensible action."
On Sunday, Belarus scrambled a jet fighter to intercept a
Ryanair commercial jet flying over the country en route from Athens
to Vilnius, Lithuania. Belarus says it diverted the plane because
of a suspected bomb aboard. While on the ground in Minsk,
authorities arrested a prominent dissident living in exile who was
a passenger, along with his girlfriend.
The European Union and the U.S. have called the incident a
brazen case of interference with civilian aviation. The EU has
urged its carriers not to fly over Belarus. Belarus said it acted
responsibly and in accordance with international protocols for
dealing with a bomb threat.
On Thursday, foreign ministers of the Group of Seven
industrialized nations and the EU's foreign policy chief called the
diversion "a serious attack on the rules governing civil aviation"
and called on the United Nations' International Civil Aviation
Organization to investigate the incident.
The ICAO later said it would do so, and ICAO Council President
Salvatore Sciacchitano said the event "posed apparent and serious
threats to the legal framework" governing commercial aviation.
Mr. O'Leary, in his letter, said Belarus had made false and
inaccurate claims in its accounting of what happened and called
Minsk airport officials "obstructionist."
He called on the government to release the arrested dissident,
Roman Protasevich, and his partner and to identify three other
passengers who left the plane in Minsk. He wrote that Ryanair
believes they are state security agents "operating at the behest of
your Government to arrange for the unlawful hijack of our
aircraft."
Belarus has put forward a sometimes-changing version of events
that European leaders have called not credible. It published an
email it said it received from Hamas, the militant group that rules
the Gaza Strip, warning of a bomb aboard the aircraft. Hamas has
denied involvement.
The company that operates the encrypted server through which the
email was sent said Thursday it was delivered after the plane was
diverted.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has also said the country
received a warning from Switzerland about a bomb threat on the
plane. Switzerland has said it had no knowledge of such a threat
and hadn't been in contact with Belarus about the matter. Mr.
Lukashenko's office and the country's aviation department didn't
immediately respond to requests for comment on Mr. O'Leary's letter
or the timing of the bomb-threat email.
In Mr. O'Leary's account, the pilot in command of Ryanair flight
4978 was left no choice but to divert away from Vilnius and land in
Minsk based on information given by the local air-traffic
controller, who was communicating with the plane while it was in
Belarus airspace.
In a transcript released by Belarus of part of the conversation
between the plane's pilots and ground control, Ryanair pilots asked
several times for traffic controllers to confirm the veracity of
the threat and their recommendation that the plane turn around and
land in Minsk.
Ryanair has declined to provide details about the incident.
The letter claims controllers refused to contact Ryanair when
requested by the pilot-in-command, after he had been alerted to the
bomb threat. Mr. O'Leary accused Belarus of falsely claiming in its
account of events that the country's aviation officials had
attempted to contact the airline's central operations.
He complained about the treatment of passengers and crew and
said ground staff at Minsk hindered the aircraft's ability to
return quickly to the air. After landing, crew and passengers were
escorted by armed guards and then detained for "over 6 hours
without explanation," Mr. O'Leary wrote. The airport then failed to
provide an English interpreter, leaving crew unable to communicate
with handling staff until Ryanair was able to provide a Russian
translator by telephone.
Sniffer dogs were used to inspect passengers' baggage, but the
luggage wasn't put through the standard procedure of being X-rayed
before being placed back on the aircraft, Mr. O'Leary charged. He
said airport staff refused to refuel the aircraft and then refused
to accept credit-card payment for the fuel. Later, he wrote, staff
refused to allow passengers to reboard when the jet was ready to
take off.
--Max Colchester and Georgi Kantchev contributed to this
article.
Write to Benjamin Katz at ben.katz@wsj.com and Daniel Michaels
at daniel.michaels@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 27, 2021 15:18 ET (19:18 GMT)
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