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Comment by bandyaboot | Hacker News Reader

This seems a lot more aggressive than what happened with the Bolivian President. The man who had tasked himself with harboring Snowden made everyone think Snowden was on the plane and the US presumably influenced some allies to not allow him to be transited through their airspace. That doesn’t seem totally unreasonable to me. That’s not to say that I side with the US govt in general regarding Snowden.

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Wasn’t the Bolivian plane the President’s which meant it was entitled to additional diplomatic protections and couldn’t be required to stop at all? Hence the various governments refusal to allow them into specific airspace so they’d run out of fuel and be forced to stop without being ordered to? It seems like the same goal and the same end result just that it required a little more finesse in their malicious compliance with international treaties.

> Hence the various governments refusal to allow them into specific airspace so they’d run out of fuel and be forced to stop without being ordered to?

> It would be illegal for the pilots to ignore such an order while inside a country's airspace.

The pilots could report that they are having technical difficulties and are unable to override the current route programmed into the autopilot. They are also have issues disengaging the autopilot. So they are "forced" to continue their flight on their pre-filed flight plan.

Any direction from ATC would be replied with "Unable":

* https://www.boldmethod.com/blog/lists/2021/01/10-times-you-s...

* https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/7915/who-has-th...

* https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/24756/when-can-...

* https://atccommunication.com/cannot-comply-with-an-atc-clear...

Short of shooting down the plane there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Who are you quoting in the second paragraph? Because it looks like you’re quoting me and I don’t believe I said that...

It looks like the throwaway was re-using their reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27257113

Not really. US using implicit financial coercion is no better than Belarus using their air-force. Clearly a larger display of corruption.

> to not allow him to be transited through their airspace.

This is exactly what Belarus just did. The US and it's allies are now strongly objecting that it's illegal and improper to do exactly what they've previously done.

The idea of mutually agreeing to allow commercial transportation aircraft to transit your airspace is supposed to be that this is not done. It is hugely hypocritical for the US to have used this same tactic, even if done through proxies.

Not allowing transit into and through your airspace is not exactly the same thing as allowing transit into your airspace then forcing them down in your country.

It's not exactly the same but it's almost the same - multiple countries synchronously closing their airspace so plane can't just go around single one thus basically forcing plane down as it could run out of fuel is quite similar to faking bomb alert in order to force plane down. Only lame excuse is different.

Spain, France and Italy closed their airspace to the plane. It was a disgraceful incident, but not the same as this.

Had Belarus closed their airspace, the ryanair flight would have had to fly around (or divert to Warsaw or Lviv)

They are closed their airspace in coordinated effort to land the plane within reach of authorities searching for Snowden. It's same.

Plane could have returned to Russia (and probably would if Snowden was aboard)

Not defending it, especially the alleged search once it landed, but it was very different to a hoax bomb threat on a commercial plane

The general question is - can you alter the other country’s airplane path to pursue political goals? And the answer is yes.

> This is exactly what Belarus just did.

No it's not?!

> a lot more aggressive

Yep, unsophisticated peasants tend to use more force than experienced urbanites. Dreadful, don't you know.

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