But the plane was not forced to land in the first place. It landed under some flimsy excuse about being unclear how much fuel they had. The plane could have simply flown around. It could have returned.
If in the middle of the flight, you are told that you were surprise - banned from flying over multiple countries in your flight plan, you are forced to abort your flight and land, unless you want the plane to run out of fuel and crash in the middle of nowhere.
And again - this is a pointless semantics game. Yes or no - is messing with airplanes, in flight, in order to make political arrests acceptable behaviour? You seem to think so (As long as its done in some particular way.)
The only difference is that one of the two planes had more options for where it could land. Both had to land at somewhere other than their destination, though, unless the pilots wanted everyone on board to die.
I don't give a rat's ass if France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy can deny an in-flight commercial airplane access to their airspace to make a political arrest. They clearly can, and did. I am asking you if they should do that. Does that seem right to you?
I think GP has done a fabulous job explaining why this isn't true, so your continued assertions that it is are strange.
Perhaps there are differences between these two circumstances after all?
Yeah, Morales's pilot could choose a different path provided there's air refueling available. Otherwise it had to land somewhere, and then airplane was searched. I'm pretty sure there are conventions that forbid that kind behavior against diplomatic personal.
So, in the end, we are again at the same place - when we ignore conventions that's perfectly fine, and when they do the same it's a completely different.
btw read first article of Chicago convention, then check what sovereignty means.
Assuming he intended to fly to the azores to refuel, he should have had enough fuel to fly back to Moscow too. The austrian air traffic control did not induce him to land; he chose to do so when portugal refused refueling rights and a small number of countries did not immediate grant permission to fly over their territory (but according to France, once it became clear it was Morales's plane they did, so... somebody is being economical with the truth there).
In any case, even without air refueling it would have been extremely unlikely that the 900EX only had enough fuel for the around 3000km to Vienna as opposed to the 8000km it could carry when the overall trip is around 15000km. Almost certainly Morales had his pick of airports to land at, including Moscow, Basel, perhaps Turkey or Egypt or who knows where.
There is clear evidence Morales' plane could not follow its original flight plan nor fly without any refueling all the way to La Paz; but there is no evidence he couldn't have chosen to avoid landing in the EU if he had wanted to. But... he didn't want to avoid that; he wanted to make the point that the US is imperialist.
And that's fine! I don't begrudge him that. But it's just an entirely different story to the Belarusian abduction of a journalist by temporarily kidnapping an entire civilian plane. Those aren't at all the same, and claims in this discussion thread to the contrary seem like strained attempts at whataboutism; presenting the US government as not just having its own flaws, but having equivalent flaws to Belarusian dictatorships' flaws. At that point, it seems like people are living in some kind of alternate reality they've imagined to suit their predetermined world view.
I will ask again - do you think it is appropriate for countries to disrupt third party, commercial air travel, in order to force travelers down into a jurisdiction where they can make political arrests? It's a very simple, yes, or no question.
So, again - yes or no - is it appropriate to disrupt a third party flight, in order to make a political arrest of a passenger on that flight? We've been dodging this question for the better part of a day, but nobody seems to be willing to stand up and say "Yes, it damn well is." Instead, everyone seems to be splitting hairs about the definition of 'disrupt'. I don't care about your definition of disrupt. [1] Is it, or is it not the sort of thing that we do?
Is the intent behind this the kind of intent that you're going to sanction? Or the kind of intent that you're going to condemn?
> (because the plane would not have landed if Snowden had been on board)
Unsubstantiated speculation, and completely irrelevant. You have no idea what the pilot would have done if he were.
> Moreover, the European countries would have known in advance that their actions would not force the plane down or create the possibility of an arrest
Also unsubstantiated speculation, and completely irrelevant. You have no idea what the people who made that call were thinking. Your interpretation also fails to account for why four countries did just that. For shits and giggles? Because they were expecting that stunt to fail? Because someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and decided to play airspace roulette?
[1] Further up in the thread, people keep saying that the plane was closer to Vilnius than Minsk, as if that is at all relevant. Were it closer to Minsk than Vilnius at the time of the call, would that have made this entire affair kosher for you? You seem to be incredibly concerned about the form, as opposed to the intent.
Why does it matter that the intent is the same? Victim of a crime obviously intends to punish the criminal, but there is much difference between taking the matter in one's own hands and relying on the justice system. Can't you see the difference?
> So, again - yes or no - is it appropriate to disrupt a third party flight, in order to make a political arrest of a passenger on that flight?
You accused the GP of speculation, yet you're doing exactly that here. How do you know that Morales incident was to capture Snowden? It could have been just a political message to deter those who were thinking of harboring Snowden, especially if they weren't sure he was onboard. They weren't forced to land in Vienna. The plane could have come back to Russia. Perhaps they did what they did for their own PR game.
edit: Yep, according to Portugal they initially requested a fuel stop in Lisbon before they were grounded. When they ultimately left Vienna they refueled at the Canary Islands.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden...
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=dme-lis-lpb&DU=km
Or maybe they planned another tech stop in the Americas.
Maybe to Canada or USA, but their presence over Austria was already inoptimal for that. I suspect they were planning on a european tech stop anyway.
The long range Dassault version with the extra winglet option can do 8800km. Moscow to La Paz is 12500. A stop in Lisbon would just barely let them make it direct to Bolivia. Otherwise they'd have to stop in Gander or NYC. Definitely not Miami.
edit: No winglets, so 8300km range (https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/9436252)
What was their flight plan? I can guess why it was necessary to interrupt them while over landlocked Europe if they really wanted to search the plane. If you let them get to Portugal or Spain and then denied them landing/passage, they could always exit to Africa.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=dme-lpb&DU=km
>it certainly had enough to make it back to Russia.
We can never really know if they legally could because we don't know if they would receive transit approval back over Austria's neighbours or just remain trapped in an obviously coordinated program to deny passage.
If Evo Morales wanted to fly back to Moscow, they would have requested clearance to return, and that would have been part of the scandal. He did not ask. Also, don't forget that being victimized by imperialist forces is pretty much exactly what Evo Morales wanted; it supports his political persona perfectly. And indeed, he used the incident to his political advantage. Incidentally: just because it's plausible this was a set up by Evo Morales doesn't diminish the impropriety of denying overflight; but it does mean I'm skeptical of all the speculation beyond that; it's just too convenient. Frankly, it's rather convenient that apparently American intelligence agencies thought Snowden was on the plane in the first place - and given Morales statements beforehand on national Russian TV, it's at least conceivable even that was an intentional misdirection.
I mean, make no mistake - the hounding of Snowden for exposing US hypocrisy is a travesty; and the lengths to which the US was willing to go to recapture him too. But just because the US actions were the opposite of noble does not somehow mean Evo Morales was entirely on the level.
I guess then you have 2 options:
- Crash into the ocean
- Enter unauthorized airspace and be shot down
But sure, it was just a "choice".
It was indirectly forced, if the other options were to either be shot down by entering unauthorized airspace or to land.
If it could have returned safely it probably would, but fuel is a very limited resource in a flying plane.
Finally, consider the motivations of its owner - Evo Morales. While I have no objection to his political aims; it is nevertheless wise to consider that he does have political aims. And as it so happens, he's a populist, anti-imperialist, anti-US political leader. For him, seeking this confrontation would have been a pure win; and furthermore being seen as the victim of imperialist oppression would have been the cherry on top. As such, it's just not reasonable to assume that his actions were aimed to defuse the situation; if he could appear to be victimized by imperialist forces, that's to his benefit.
So it's entirely plausible for him to choose to land in Vienna instead of return. It's not very plausible fuel was running low. Additionally, there are about a dozen other countries very close by he could like have chosen to land in, even if fuel was scarce - he wasn't in some inescapable box.