Belarus air traffic controllers ‘tricked’ Ryanair pilot to land in Minsk over fears ‘bomb’ could be activated

The Ryanair pilot forced to land his plane in Belarus was allegedly told by air traffic controllers in Minsk that an onboard bomb would be activated if the plane flew on to Lithuania.

Transcripts published online on Tuesday by Belarusian transport authorities – but subsequently taken offline – appeared to fill in crucial details about the sequence of events that led to Ryanair flight FR4978 being diverted to Minsk.

The released conversation suggested Belarusian air control tricked the pilot with a warning about a bomb being activated if the plane flew over its original destination, Vilnius.

At the time of the warning, the Boeing 737 was considerably closer to Vilnius than the Belarusian capital.

In fragments of the alleged exchanges, Belarusian ground control first passes on the warning, which it claims was received from “security services”, then recommends a diversion to Minsk.

The pilot asks for a new flight path, and requests more information about who was recommending the detour — the departure airport, Athens, or the destination airport, Vilnius. When told that it was Minsk who recommended the change, the pilot asks how air traffic control assessed the level of threat: code green, yellow, amber or red.

“They say the code is red”, the controller replies.

The new information followed statements on Monday by Lithuanian investigators, who suggested that the decision to divert to Minsk was ultimately taken by the Ryanair captain, after discussing with company management.

In other words, contrary to previous reports, there was no explicit or implicit threat from the MiG-29 fighter jet scrambled on the orders of Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s disputed president. 

No bomb was discovered when the plane landed. That seemed to support an interpretation that Mr Lukashenko had commandeered the passenger jet purely in order to arrest Roman Protasevich, a dissident journalist who was onboard.

As founder and former editor of the influential opposition platform Nexta, Mr Protasevich played a key role in coordinating the challenge to the autocrat’s 26-year rule last summer.

Mr Lukashenko does not appear to be in a hurry to forgive him.

The president’s officials later insisted that Belarus had in fact received a bomb warning from Hamas. However, the Palestinian militant group was not altogether happy with the offer of association.

Speaking to Russian media on Tuesday, Hamas official Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook said attempts to blame the group were “outrageous” and were the product of “archaic thinking” that didn’t reflect contemporary realities.

“International public opinion no longer accepts such methods,” Mr Abu Marzook said.