Belarus forces Ryanair plane to divert *NO GENERAL POLITICS* *MOD WARNING POST 1*

Cloudio9

Interesting political story breaking where this morning Belarus diverted a Ryanair flight bound for Vilnius to Minsk in order to arrest a journalist on board. Should be some major fallout from this.

https://twitter.com/franakviacorka/status/1396429666374782981


MOD NOTE I have just deleted a number of posts that had no relevance to the incident in Belarus, but were direct digs and worse at Irish Politicians and their families.

Any repeat of such postings in this or any other related threads will incur sanctions with no further warnings

Van.Bosch

Cloudio9 wrote: »

Interesting political story breaking where this morning Belarus diverted a Ryanair flight bound for Vilnius to Minsk in order to arrest a journalist on board. Should be some major fallout from this.

https://twitter.com/franakviacorka/status/1396429666374782981

Should be but there won’t. Looking at the map the plane was so close to Vilnius. I’m sure it was very scary for the flight crew and of course the journalist.

Multipass

Lots of reports of fighter jets ‘escorting’ the plane, and of a bomb threat. It will be interesting to see the response if it turns out that this was purely a security operation by Belarus to capture an opponent.

billie1b

Multipass wrote: »

Lots of reports of fighter jets ‘escorting’ the plane, and of a bomb threat. It will be interesting to see the response if it turns out that this was purely a security operation by Belarus to capture an opponent.

Crew were called to say they had a bomb threat on board and had to divert to Minsk and that they were getting escorted by fighter jets, when they landed they were told the bomb threat was false but that they were seizing the aircraft until the pax was detained. Aircraft is still there with crew stuck on it.

Dohvolle

Wasn't this the plot of "White Knights"? Russian Defector's plane makes emergency landing in Soviet Russia, and he is sent back home to be "re-educated".

Calina

Dohvolle wrote: »

Wasn't this the plot of "White Knights"? Russian Defector's plane makes emergency landing in Soviet Russia, and he is sent back home to be "re-educated".

White Nights, one of the best dance scenes ever.

Aer Lingus provided the 747 in that film.

plodder

Has anything like this ever happened before? If it's established that it was a ruse to get hold of the passenger where does that leave Belarus as a country that you can safely fly to or from or over?

JohnC.

Isn’t this essentially a hijacking? I had a quick Google and I didn’t see anything to say the hijacker must be on the plane.

Dempo1

Essentially a state sponsored Hijacking by all accounts, whilst NOTHING will of course happen, Belarus a complete basket case, Simon Coveney about to realise how Toothless the UN security Council is, the one he's been salivating over since Ireland got a pointless seat on it.

LillySV

imagine being on that plane and looking out your window to see a mig 29! scary sight im sure

Strumms

If I’m O’Leary I’m billing the Belarus government for the overtime for the crew, extra fuel, landing / maintenance costs..Ryanair don’t fly there but if I am another EU carrier I’d be wary...Lufthansa, Austrian, LOT all amongst others fly in and out of there.

Politically there would need to be repercussions too... it’s an Irish company, Irish owned jet... that involves the government needing to take action...

Noxegon

SP-RSM is the aircraft involved.

I can’t imagine the crew have Belarusian visas. What is the protocol in that situation?

mr.anonymous

An apparent politically motivated act of unlawful interference against an EU carrier (Ryanair's Polish subsidiary I believe). Condemnation is sure to come from ICAO and EU institutions.

Dempo1

mr.anonymous wrote: »

An apparent politically motivated act of unlawful interference against an EU carrier (Ryanair's Polish subsidiary I believe). Condemnation is sure to come from ICAO and EU institutions.

And completely ignored by that Lunatic president of Belarus

Larbre34

Its an act of air piracy against an aircraft of Ireland and the EU, while on an internal EU flight.

Call me paranoid, but I'm getting a bit sick of attacks on this State originating from totalitarian eastern European Countries. However this is worse because it was allegedly perpetrated by the authorities.

Belarus needs to be put up against the wall for this.

cailinoBAC

Sorry if this is a naive question but would the audio from cockpit be available for authorities or it could be deleted?

Dempo1

Larbre34 wrote: »

Its an act of air piracy against an aircraft of Ireland and the EU, while on an internal EU flight.

Call me paranoid, but I'm getting a bit sick of attacks on this State originating from totalitarian eastern European Countries. However this is worse because it was allegedly perpetrated by the authorities.

Belarus needs to be put up against the wall for this.

Just to be clear, this is Belarus? They couldn't give a flying (excuse the pun) S**** about the EU or international law. The EU will huff and puff, Simon Coveney will get his boxers in a twist and Russia will split its sides in laughter.

It will be another Non Story in, O say a month primarily because no country, the UN security Council or Nato will so much as lift a feathery pillow against a country propped up by Putin.

Das Reich

He had a death penalty for what?

mr.anonymous

cailinoBAC wrote: »

Sorry if this is a naive question but would the audio from cockpit be available for authorities or it could be deleted?

It would be stored on the cockpit voice recorder but must be downloaded within a certain time after the incident in order to be preserved. ATC recordings are usually publicly available but that depends on the country.

Fann Linn

Das Reich wrote: »

He had a death sentency for what?

Critic of the government. Journalist.

Noxegon

Aircraft is airborne now, almost 14 hours after the morning flight from VNO to ATH.

I can only assume that a replacement crew was bussed in. I can't imagine the flight crew would be safe to operate after that length of time?

Larbre34

cailinoBAC wrote: »

Sorry if this is a naive question but would the audio from cockpit be available for authorities or it could be deleted?

Its a perfectly legitimate question given the aggressive act.

Assuming the Belarusians haven't attempted to interfere with the Aircraft, it should be on the Cockpit Voice Recorder, which I'm sure the pilots will be preserving at all costs.

To my knowledge, Minsk ATC would have to preserve the audio too under international air traffic protocols, but good luck getting that.

tnegun

The CVR is a 2 hour loop right? I'd say that the interesting bits are long gone unless the breaker was pulled after landing and I doubt that.

Larbre34

tnegun wrote: »

The CVR is a 2 hour loop right? I'd say that the interesting bits are long gone unless the breaker was pulled after landing and I doubt that.

Thats why I would hope one or both of the pilots had the sense to preserve it when it became clear what was unfolding. Fingers crossed anyway.

Hello 2D Person Below

Noxegon wrote: »

SP-RSM is the aircraft involved.

I can’t imagine the crew have Belarusian visas. What is the protocol in that situation?

They're not leaving the airport/clearing customs so nothing happens.

wonski

Strumms wrote: »

If I’m O’Leary I’m billing the Belarus government for the overtime for the crew, extra fuel, landing / maintenance costs..Ryanair don’t fly there but if I am another EU carrier I’d be wary...Lufthansa, Austrian, LOT all amongst others fly in and out of there.

Politically there would need to be repercussions too... it’s an Irish company, Irish owned jet... that involves the government needing to take action...

It's not about money. Belarus will pay the costs without any problems.

That's not the issue here.

tnegun

Larbre34 wrote: »

Thats why I would hope one or both of the pilots had the sense to preserve it when it became clear what was unfolding. Fingers crossed anyway.

I'd say they were more interested in just getting out of there. The plane is in the air now so I doubt it unless they swapped out the CVR which is even more unlikely and they can't fly without it so I think its gone. I'm not sure it would give much anyway as its not like anyone can argue the plan wasn't diverted for anything other than political reasons and the two pilots will be able to recount exactly what happened.

PommieBast

plodder wrote: »

Has anything like this ever happened before? If it's established that it was a ruse to get hold of the passenger where does that leave Belarus as a country that you can safely fly to or from or over?

There seems to be similarities with the Evo Morales grounding when the US was after Edward Snowden.

plodder

cailinoBAC wrote: »

Sorry if this is a naive question but would the audio from cockpit be available for authorities or it could be deleted?

Even if it is deleted, the recollection of the crew should be fresh enough. Given they were closer to Vilnius than Minsk at the time, I'd say they remember what was said well enough.

Lmkrnr

Fann Linn wrote: »

Still no excuse for bringing down a plane.

Totally agree. It has been done before though as the above poster said, on EU soil. There wasn't much said about that then.

Hello 2D Person Below

EU doesn't give a rusty **** about Belarus.

Look at their reaction to Maduro winning democratic elections in Venezuela compared to the 'last dictator in Europe'.