Belrus flight diversion ‘breached all rules’
The diversion of a Ryanair flight to Belarus, allowing a prominent critic to be arrested, was a “premeditated breach of all the international aviation rules”, according to the airline’s boss Michael O’leary.
Ryanair flight FR4978 from Greece to Lithuania on 23 May changed course to head for the Belarus capital Minsk, escorted by a MIG fighter jet.
The Foreign Office has previously said the plane was grounded “on the basis of a false bomb scare” in order to arrest an opposition journalist, Roman Protasevich.
Giving evidence to the Transport Select Committee yesterday, Mr O’leary said the flight crew were told by Minsk air traffic control that they had received “a credible threat that if the aircraft entered Lithuanian air space, or attempted to land at Vilnius airport, that a bomb on board would be detonated”.
He said the captain “repeatedly” asked Minsk Atctoprovideanopenline of communication back to Ryanair’s operations control centre in Warsaw, but was told, “Ryanair weren’t answering the phone”, which was “completely untrue”.
Mr O’leary said the captain was put under “considerable pressure” to land in Minsk.
He said after the plane landed in Minsk, the passengers and crew were taken to a terminal building, while the captain remained onboard – but was accompanied by an armed guard every time he left his cockpit.
“It was a very threatening and hostile environment,” he said. “We eventually got the aircraft back out of Minsk after about eight hours.”
Police Scotland is appealing for information about a road accident at Glencoe which left a man in hospital with serious injuries.
The crash took place on the A82 just north of Kingshouse, Glencoe, at around 1.30pm on Monday and involved a BMW motorcycle and a VW Golf car.
The 55-year-old driver of the motorcycle was taken to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness with serious injuries, his current condition is unknown.
Police Scotland is now appealing for any witnesses of the incident to come forward to help with the investigation, people with dash-cam footage are particularly encouraged to get in touch.
Police Constable Mary Boyd, of the Fort William Road Policing Unit, said: “We are keen to speak to anyone who may have been around at the time of this crash, particularly anyone with dash-cam footage that could help with our collisioninvestigation.ifyoucan help please call us.”