Belarus flight diversion could threaten international security

The authorities there arrested a prominent journalist and opposition activist, before allowing the plane to continue its journey. The incident has created an international uproar and has raised questions over the legality of the grounding of the aircraft and the implications for the airline industry.

The European Union, the UK, Ukraine and Lithuania banned their airlines from flying over Belarus. According to aircraft tracking firm Flightradar24, about 3,000 flights pass through Belarus each week.

The move to escape the country adds to Ukraine’s earlier sanctions already Malaysia Airlines downed a plane in 2014. While not presenting a major detour for most airlines, rerouting primarily adds time and extra fuel expense to flights between Europe and Southeast Asia.

For example, a British Airways flight from London to Kuala Lumpur will fly directly over eastern Ukraine, without any restrictions. The flight is using Belarus airspace instead, before turning south towards the Malaysian capital. With the new restrictions, the airline will now be required to fly northward, turning south over Russia.

On Monday, Belarusian transport officials said that Gaza’s governing terrorist group, Hamas, had sent an email to Minsk National Airport stating that a bomb on RyanAir’s flight until Israel ended hostilities in the Gaza Strip The explosion would occur, a claim which was rejected by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. As “completely impossible”. Gaza officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Aviation experts say that if Belarus threatened the bomb and intercepted the jetliner to catch the disgruntled, it would undermine the Chicago Convention signed in 1944, which in most cases prohibited the use of military force against civilian aircraft. Does. Industry officials and aviation-safety officials said they do not recall a recent example involving a commercial jetliner.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” said Conor Nolan, president of the Board of Governors of the Virginia-based Flight Safety Foundation, which advocates for air safety. “If we lose confidence in the ability to fly over the states safely, it will significantly harm confidence in international commercial aviation.” He and others demanded a comprehensive investigation into what happened.

Bomb threats are one of the toughest challenges a commercial airline pilot faces, and airlines and aviation regulators have spent years devising protocols to handle them. Procedures, which involve authenticating and communicating a threat and what action to take once someone is considered genuine, are largely kept from public view, so that potential bad actors can be exploited or avoided. To be discouraged.

But officials say they are built on trust between the cockpit crew and the officers. If the RyanAir diversion is shown as a ploy, then that belief could be destroyed not only in Belarus, but around the world.

The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Association said in a statement, “This unprecedented act of unlawful interference will potentially eliminate all assumptions about the safest response to bomb threats on flight and interception.”

Pilots say a fundamental principle of bomb-threat response is to land the aircraft at the nearest safe airport. According to flight-tracking data, in the case of the RyanAir diversion, the jetliner overturned and moved towards the capital of Belarus, Minsk, when it was already close to the border with Lithuania. According to Eurocontrol, which manages air-traffic controllers across Europe, Lithuania would have had an operative airport to reach Vilnius, the original destination of the flight.

Ryanair’s cockpit crew had little room to maneuver, pilots and aviation industry officials said. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on planes that crashed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, governments have increasingly felt that they may believe the jetliner is a direct threat if it fails to respond to instructions, and They can order military action to prevent disaster.

Mr. Nolan said, “Come on, don’t be under any illusion, if a fighter jet from your wingtip is clearly indicating directions, the pilot of a commercial air transport aircraft has no choice but to follow those instructions.” is.”

The Belarus interception is not without some commonalities. Russia’s government has dismissed criticism against its ally Belarus, citing a 2013 incident in which Bolivia’s presidential aircraft, suspected of carrying former US intelligence officer Edward Snowden, en route back to Bolivia from Moscow France and Portugal were prevented from entering the airspace. It was forced to land in Vienna, where the aircraft was searched. A government aircraft was involved in that incident, however, not a commercial airline.

In 1985, the US intercepted an Egyptian passenger jet carrying four people who had conspired to hijack an Italian cruise ship. The flight, which requested permission to land in Tunis, Tunisia, was directed by US military jets to divert to a naval air station in Sicily, where the men were arrested.