Transcript of controller telling plane to land in Minsk | Hacker News Reader

Transcript of controller telling plane to land in Minsk

reuters.com

243 pointsaericson192 comments

> Pilot: Again, this recommendation to divert to Minsk where did it come from? Where did it come from? Company? Did it come from departure airport authorities or arrival airport authorities?

Is it usual for a pilot to ask for all this information? From a "casual reader" perspective, it looks like the pilot really did not want to divert, but this might just be my reading.

PIC is ultimately responsible for safety of flight, not controllers or authorities. Given the unusual message which is essentially asking the pilot to declare emergency and oddly specific instructions to divert I don't think this is unusual. Normally in an emergency the pilot would divert to either the filed alternate airport or to another at the pilot's discretion, they would not be told specifically where to go (they might be offered a suggestion, they would often even ask the controller for suggestions since the controller has all the weather at hand, but it would be odd in the US at least for a controller to just directly tell a pilot where to divert as this is understood to be the pilot's call). The transcript gives the feeling the pilot was confused about why they were being given instructions to divert to Minsk which I would assume was not their filed alternate. Pilots in general and airliners especially do not like last-minute changes of plan because they are a good way for an accident to happen, that's why there are planned and filed alternates.

Or put more simply: normally in an emergency the controller asks the pilot what they want to do ("say intentions"). The controller telling the pilot what to do is very weird and inconsistent with the general concept of the PIC as ultimately in command.

In situations where a controller believes that an aircraft has hostile intent (say believe it's been hijacked), then they (and/or air force) will give specific instructions. Obviously if you think you might have a 9/11 situation with a plane coming into say London, you tell them to divert to Stansted (well away from the city). If they continue flying to central London, then at some point you have to take the decision to shoot it down, or hope that the pilot isn't going to fly into a building.

That decision would probably come from the PM in the UK.

An engine failure situation then sure, it's upto the pilot.

(Of course in this specific case it was a hostile government hijacking a commercial plane and there was no legitimate reason at all to divert to Minsk)

This is kind of a weird area. I only have the US FAR/AIM in front of me, a lot of this is harmonized internationally by ICAO but I'm not sure how complete that is in these more edge cases. But in general there is no procedure that allows a controller to "take command" of an airplane, however, there is a procedure (this is ICAO harmonized) for the military to instruct aircraft via emergency security control (ESCAT) or intercept. In the case of ESCAT the book doesn't say compliance is mandatory but rather expected, so presumably a PIC could refuse to comply under the normal safety of flight rules (a pilot is not obligated to obey any instruction that, in their judgment, puts the aircraft in danger). In the case of intercept compliance is mandatory, but intercept is also a very specific procedure which is not reported to have occurred here. At least from the reporting it sounds more like the fighter that was sent appeared as an escort, which is a distinct situation from intercept (and fairly normal in a bomb threat situation, in order to immediately report the what and where if a bomb does go off to speed SAR response). For the US rules see AIM 5-6-12 and up. It does not appear that any of these rules were invoked in this situation.

I certainly have no idea on the formality, I do remember on 9/11 discussion about whether the airforce had shot down flight 93.

There was a British "reality tv" show a few years later where some idiots got to run the country (heh). One scenario had a plane approaching London and refusing to divert to Stansted. The people 'in charge' just ran the clock down, not making the decision to fire, and the plane crashed into westminster, so not a total loss I guess.

I know I'm a bit late to respond, but I think you're thinking of Crisis Command (2004). There's a copy floating around on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjkSeuD-8yA

Also, when you look at the flight path, the Minsk airport was MUCH further from the Vilnius airport they intended to land at. They were almost to their destination and ALMOST out of Belarus airspace.

A read of the article will clear up this mystery for you.

No it doesn't. Please tell me what part of the article clears this up besides perhaps the previously reported fighter jet.

That it was suggested that the (non-existent) bomb on board was intended to explode near or at Vilnius.

The first sentence the controller said explains why the pilot wasn't supposed to land at the Vilnius airport. I want to avoid quoting the line for fear of my account being flagged in government systems.

It is not uncommon in US for ATC to offer pilot options for diversion or emergency landing when pilot declares an emergency. Good controllers understand that pilot might be dealing with flying airplane and dealing with emergency (e.g. engine failure) and offering help with navigation. Of course, it is PIC responsibility to select the best option and communicate to ATC about it.

The radio exchange with Captain Sully is burned in my brain.

Departure control (15:29:21): Cactus fifteen twenty nine turn right two eight zero, you can land runway one at Teterboro.

[...]

Sullenberger (15:29:25): We can’t do it.

[...]

Departure control (15:29:27): Kay which runway would you like at Teterboro?

[...]

Sullenberger (15:29:28): We’re gonna be in the Hudson.

Departure control (15:29:33): I’m sorry say again Cactus?

Stone cold and matter-of-fact!

> Stone cold and matter-of-fact!

Not particularly.

"I intend to ditch into the Hudson River as we cannot reach an alternative airport" would have been clearer and avoided wasting time clarifying intentions.

I meant his tone of voice, which sounds very calm and collected for someone who's about to crash an airplane.

https://youtu.be/JItbos1tYZs?t=155

That’s just redundant

For people casually interested in this. What is PIC?

Pilot In Command. On a commercial flight there are at least two pilots, and possibly three.

To be more precise, it's the designation of the pilot who is responsible for the plane, who may or may not be the pilot who is currently physically flying the plane.

Pilot in command

It's "Pilot In Command"

If you were told there is a bomb on board your plane, would you not be the slightest bit interested in some additional information about where that intelligence has come from?

I suspect airlines get hoax bomb threats on a regular basis so pilots are keen to understand the source and veracity of the threats.

I haven't had time to follow this episode to the level of detail I normally would. I would expect a number of factors at play around hesitancy, not limited to:

* Expectation of contact on other frequencies.

* Minsk directly stating bomb on board with connection to Vilnius (may not be protocol)

* Airport staff sent email (again, is this correct protocol?)

* Message being that activation is over Vilnius (pilot may have accepted that, but also accepted that they had sufficient fuel to hold)

* Pilot considering bomb may be activated by altitude (hence wanting to hold versus make immediate landing in place with relatively poor facilities)

* Lack of NATO or other western agency involvement. Again, this is a sudden and extremely difficult situation, but pilot probably knows they fuel to make a more considered decision on actions.

I look forward to learning more from this incident. You should be able to trust any controller is acting in good faith as a civilian navigator, but that's clearly not the case.

>> You should be able to trust any controller is acting in good faith as a civilian navigator, but that's clearly not the case.

Maybe the controller believed the information they had? I'm sure it wasn't their plan to do this, so someone told them something. But then we can move your statement to the next layer - the controller should be able to trust that someone giving them that kind of information is acting in good faith. Apparently not in Belarus.

If they genuinely believed the information, why were they so circuitous in answering the captains questions? For example

> Pilot: Again, this recommendation to divert to Minsk where did it come from? Where did it come from? Company? Did it come from departure airport authorities or arrival airport authorities?

> Controller: This is our recommendations.

I'm more like to believe that the ATC controller was acting under duress

Which is one particularly heinous aspect of this whole saga btw - the loss of trust due to the abuse of the emergency protocols. A bit like abusing the Red Cross or a white flag to commit an attack in war. One just doesn’t do that.

Definitely not usual. As for the pilot being suspicious, I agree. The plane was also only about 30 km (=2-3 min flying time) from the Lithuanian border. Imagine if the pilot had decided to make the attempt. A Belarusian MiG violating NATO airspace?

I beg to differ. Controllers are not ultimately responsible for the safety of a plane and its passengers. The pilots not only had a right but IMO a duty to make sure they understood the situation and the request before making any decision to divert.

The Belarusian MiG wouldn't have followed them into EU airspace. This was quite obviously a succesful social engineering attempt on the ATC's part to divert the plane to Minsk. This is why it's so outrageous and why the international community took such swift action.

Russian airforces regularly violates NATO airspace in Norway. They never get any consequences for it, so why wouldn't they?

Would love some sources on that, because that would be a big issue. Russians regularly fly in international airspace along the Norwegian coast and are intercepted there by Norwegian fighters, but I have never heard about them actually violating Norwegian airspace. This is the closest I know of:

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2019/02/11-russia...

It's happened a couple of times to Sweden which while not in NATO is in EU (and is generally considered a close ally to NATO).

Sources in Swedish:

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/tre-ryska-militarflygplan...

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/expressen-ryskt-stridsfly...

You can find tons of data on that on Google, maybe not Norway but EU airspace. It happens about once a day.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russian-aircraft-violate-eur...

Headline: "NATO says Russian aircraft violated European airspace nearly 300 times in 2019"

Article: "NATO jets intercepted Russian planes flying close to NATO airspace nearly 300 times in 2019, an alliance official said"

These do not mean the same thing.

There are more sources that are more explicit about crossing into the airspace.

- https://news.err.ee/1608203641/russian-aircraft-violates-est... - https://euobserver.com/tickers/126198

etc...

thank you. and to take this analysis a step further, claims of borders are also not static or a-political. (c.f. Kashmir). Wikipedia keeps a list of these [0]. On the other side of Asia, China makes a larger claim of maritime territory than the US recognizes...and the US Navy regularly sales through those waters [1].

I would encourage people to make a 2 by 2 matrix for soem perspective. Pick two country's...on one axis and put both on there as the 'violated' border and the 'violator' on the other. write headlines for all four boxes.

and to be clear to anyone not reading the parent. The headline and article wearywanderer mentions are literal quotes. The headline is the headline, and the quote from the article is literally the first sentence. They don't match as a factual matter.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_disputes

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-says-us-warship-il...

PRC took part in negotiating UNCLOS from 1973 to 1982, and ratified in 1996. They recognized the territories of other countries when they ratified it.

Because a MiG firing on a NATO-country airplane that's in NATO airspace is definitely sound reason of invoking NATO Art 5

There is an enormous leap between "violating airspace" and "shooting down a passenger plane while violating airspace"

The Russians, via their proxies in Ukraine, blew up an airliner a few years back.

But only through carelessness. They thought they were shooting at a Ukrainian military transport plane.

No carelessness, that's exactly what they were told to do: shoot down everything that flies. That was their explicit order.

Do you have a source for that?

The official investigation concluded it was a mistake by poorly trained soldiers who thought they were downing a military An-26 plane.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

Sources are in Russian. Russian separatists told shortly after the incident:

"В районе Тореза только что сбили самолет Ан-26, валяется где-то за шахтой Прогресс. Предупреждали же - не летать в "нашем небе". А вот и видео-подтверждение очередного "птичкопада". Птичка упала за террикон, жилой сектор не зацепила. Мирные люди не пострадали. А также еще есть информация о втором сбитом самолете, вроде бы Су", - говорится в сообщении Стрелкова.

"In the area of Torez, an An-26 plane has just been shot down, lying somewhere behind the Progress mine. We warned not to fly in our sky. And here is a video confirmation of the next birdfall. Civilians were not injured. And there is also information about the second downed plane, like Su, "- said in the message of Strelkov.

And that source confirms the official version? They didn't have orders to shoot down anything, they had orders to shoot down anything of the Ukrainian military.

An-26 is a military cargo plane, a legitimate target in their eyes. Why on earth would they shoot down neutral civilian airliners, of which there were many?

Also https://youtu.be/_rbzlMeGToI?t=83 the "Cossack" referred in other tapes as a unit commander to whom the battery belonged pretty much says "and so? fuck them, we'll say they are spies, it's war"

It's surprising to see it being 7 years since, and there are still people from the West still dead convinced in finding "alternative facts."

There is one, and only ground truth. A battery had an order to "shoot everything that flies," and that's what they did within hours of the order.

What? Look at the transcript again, they're wondering why it's a civilian plane and not an An-26, and thinking of a way to deal with that...

He is not looking for a way to "deal with it," he very well knows what's going on, and aware of the order, and tell the caller to fuck off.

There is no "alternative facts" there. An order to shoot everything that flies, and they did it.

There are hours, and hours of Ukrainian intercepts, probably listened by every Western intelligence agency 100 times over.

If that doesn't seal the deal, it's for people who fully willingly choosing to believe in a lie for sake of playing a cause celebre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot#:~:text=In%20poli....

Ukrainians blew their extremely valuable intercept source to bring this to attention of the world.

Now, seven year later, EU keeps soiling their pants, and still can't gather enough courage to point a finger on Russia. They are trying their hardest to pretend that they don't know what's going on.

Even if the shutdown was genuinely inadvertent, it would still be a cause for an immediate retaliation to any normal country.

> EU keeps soiling their pants, and still can't gather enough courage to point a finger on Russia

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53367425

https://www.rferl.org/a/dutch-court-rejects-request-to-inves...

I don't think that EU doesn't keep its finger pointed to Russia. Russia is heavily sanctioned already, what do you expect EU to do, invade them ?

Russia had no reasons to take down that plane. The air space was open with planes flying over Donbas every day. A bunch of monkeys mistook it for a Ukrainian military plane and blew it up.

No, it was an explicit order, close down the airspace no matter what. This implied shooting everything that flies in the most literal sense. They knew fully they were shooting a civilian plane.

In the celebratory Facebook post right after the shooting they claimed it was a military transport. In the intercepted cell phone call by a militant to a commander from the crash site they find out it's a civilian plane because they find the bodies and luggage.

https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/18/world/europe/ukraine-mh17-int...

Well what does violating the airspace in pursuit of the passanger plane achieve in this case? Of course the implication is that the MiG could have shot them down.

Russian and NATO air forces regularly violate each others airspace (and the same with Warsaw Pact forces during the Cold War), but not while making even implied specific threats to civil aviation. (Also, though usually, not quite always without consequence, e.g, the Russian aircraft shot down by Turkey in 2015. To be fair, this was on an actual combat mission and not a routine intrusion, but then again neither would the Belarussian intrusion being imagined have been the routine kind.)

There's a difference between countries routinely buzzing airspace with military aircraft to show they can and test the response, and entering airspace with military aircraft to threaten a foreign civilian airliner, which could reasonably be interpreted as an act of war.

Any source?

Not an airline pilot, but I am a private pilot.

Yes, I think it's normal to ask for more information while complying with instructions from ATC, [their] workload permitting. And you're required to comply with ATC instructions except in an emergency (doesn't necessarily have to be declared).

Would "being told you have a bomb on board" qualify as an emergency in this sense?

It would seem so, as that would be a situation which threatens the safety of the aircraft, which is a pretty good definition of an emergency.

I've not gone through the detail yet, but depending on altitude of the aircraft at the time of the alert, and its speed, continuing onward to Lithuania may have made more sense for the crew - if they were at or near cruising altitude, you're talking about (say) 100 nm of lateral distance to execute the descent (for a normal descent profile).

Under normal circumstances, you would be unlikely to want to divert to a new airport for this emergency landing, unless there was an issue like poor visibility or very limited emergency services at your destination - since diverting would likely require new descent and approach calculation and routing and briefing.

You’re required to follow ATC instruction, yes, but usually in order to avoid other traffic and sequencing, not anything more.

I mean, as a driver you’re required to obey traffic lights, but they would not normally impose a destination on you.

In Belarus that may be the case (I seriously doubt it though), but it is not the case in the US. You are required to comply with all ATC instructions.

14 CFR 91.123(b) - https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.123

Anecdotal but Ryanair also really really don’t want to be diverting. I remember circling an airport for 2 hours with them waiting for very heavy snow to be cleared for a runway! Eventually they diverted.

Is this specific to Ryanair? I imagine a plane not landing at the intended destination airport is much more disruptive than being late to that destination. E.g. passengers waiting at the destination airport for a flight involving that incoming plane, different airlines having only a fixed number of gates leased at a specific airport, etc

If you're Russian? I would. No point in trusting any authority to be doing the right thing over there.

Is it unusual for a human being having a human response? This request was obvious raising a lot of alarm bells. Nobody should follow order blindly. You act like a pilot is some sort of butler who should only do as followed?

I don't think you can even ask if it's usual for a pilot because this request was anything but usual.

All the info from ATC is in that just vague enough category that you wonder if it’s just a language barrier issue or if what you’re thinking is really happening.

I feel like the pilot knew something was off, but eventually went along with it because he didn’t really have any other choice.

Is Belarus going to become another country international airlines avoid flying over?

Belarus is already such a country.

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/24/999920538/eu-asks-all-eu-base...

I doubt Russian, Ukrainian airlines will stope overflying Belrus.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-b...

Russia yes, but Ukraine has no reason not to follow suit. Even ignoring the fact that this is the right thing to do, they want good relations with the EU and NATO instead of being isolated like Belarus.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_37750.htm

> pilot knew something was off

The whole "there's a bomb that can be detonated over Vilnius" so you have to divert to an airport further away, where I am speaking from" thing sounds like a B-movie plot.

At the point they diverted they could have also flown to Kaunas (a Ryanair base) if the concern was to avoid flying over Vilnius. That would also have been closer than Minsk.

I don't think the pilot was aware of any reason not to fly to Minsk at the time.

Flight plans include alternate airports, and Minsk is far enough away compared to other airports to not be on a filed flight plan for this particular route.

Filed alternatives are for fuel planning and satisfying the bureaucracy (showing the flight complies with ETOPS etc).

In a real emergency the pilots will select the most convenient airport based on whatever factors they are presented with. Especially so in today's world of paperless cockpits, in the past having the correct approaches to hand might have tipped the balance in favour of a planned alternative.

Sure, and judging by the transcript Minsk wasn't the pilot's choice.

It's also possible the ATC was in the dark. Maybe their boss just told them there was a bomb threat and make them divert and don't ask questions.

This is the most interesting part for me:

PILOT ASKS FOR FURTHER DETAILS

Pilot: Again, this recommendation to divert to Minsk where did it come from? Where did it come from? Company? Did it come from departure airport authorities or arrival airport authorities?

There he was on the right track to do what we always recommend to avoid being fished: Independently verify from the original source.

Controller: This is our recommendations.

Minsk thwarts it by telling the truth and going into Milgram Experiment mode:

Pilot: Can you say again?

Controller: This is our recommendations.

Pilot: (unreadable.)

Pilot: Did you say that your recommendation?

PILOT AGREES TO LAND IN MINSK

Unfortunately (but understandably) pilot obeys.

Wasn't this "recommendation" accompanied by a fighter jet? That isn't exact a Milgram scenario.

Is there any indication that the pilots were aware of the military jet?

Assuming the transcript is genuine and reasonably complete, then I would be surprised if captain would have been aware of their escort (if it existed), at least before making the decision to divert to Minsk. Feels like it is something that would have come up in the communication.

Also, sky is pretty big, and a MiG-29 has no problem tracking and following a fat passenger jet at a distance. Most likely only way pilot could have noticed the MiG would have been if the MiG would have intentionally made itself seen, i.e. flying very close by.

Fighters can optionally turn on the same transponders (but with different identifiers) as normal civilian aircraft, right? It's not impossible for it to have been intentionally showing it's presence without flying close.

Is there even a credible report of it being accompanied by a military jet? The reports I have seen are all sketchy on that part.

I think what you are doing ia astroturfing but just in case anyone believes this bullshit, there is zero doubt that a fighter jet went up and 'escorted' the plane.

https://apnews.com/article/belarus-europe-edcf633281e3e9a55b...

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/belarus-journ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-23/belarus-d...

In case of any doubt left, here is an official sanction decision on this signed by 27 countries:

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

What really degrades the discussion is completely uninformed people joining in with lazy statements.

Estaseuropano should have read a news article rather than ask a useless (at best) question.

Both degrade the discussion :)

TASS reported it thus:

MINSK, May 23. /TASS/. Belarus’ defense ministry has confirmed that a MiG-29 fighter jet was scrambled on Sunday to escort the Ryanair passenger plane that made emergency landing at Minsk’s airport.

"After the polit[sic] of this civil aircraft (the Ryanair plane - TASS) decided to land at an alternate airport (Minsk-2) and turned the plane towards Minsk, it was decided to scramble a MiG-29 crew on duty from the Baranovichi airport (Brest region)," the ministry said on its Telegram channel, citing Andrei Gurtsevich, chief of the air operations and first deputy commander of Belarus air and air defense forces.

https://tass.com/world/1292845

That's a Russian state controlled 'news' agency reporting on the events of an ally.

Are you for real? When a fighter jet intercepts you, you damn well know it. That's the whole point of fighter jets intercepting planes; they are impossible for pilots to ignore.

> Unfortunately (but understandably) pilot obeys.

Was this not the right decision?

If not, can you clarify what the pilot should have done, even if it is understandable that they didn't do it?

I wrote this primarily because I think of the situation and the outcome as unfortunate. I'm not sure the pilot had a chance but rather I find it remarkable that he tried hard to do the right thing.

>according to a transcript released on Tuesday by authorities in Belarus.

>Following are excerpts from the transcript, which Reuters was unable to verify.

I would wait for a Ryanair transcript.

That would be interesting. Not sure the airline has one, the CVR normally records only the last two hours IIRC.

They could officially confirm this transcript then (if it's legit)?

I mean we shouldn't trust Lukashenko with this stuff, he officially released some wild fakes:

>Alyaksandr Lukashenka declared recently that he got proof that Western powers stand behind both the Navalny case and the protests in Belarus. 4 September, the Belarusian security services, KGB (yes, KGB), published an audio recording of a super-secret conversation between officers of the German and Polish special forces, discussing details on the Navalny poisoning and noting that Lukashenka has proven to be a hard nut to crack.

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/mike-and-nick-vs-die-hard-lukashenka/

Is there no save button when something substancial happens?

You'd think that squaking 7700 would immediately put the recorders into write-only mode.

Don't forget that the country that started to divert planes to catch democrat dissidents was the United States. But Snowden wasn't in the plane.

Details here: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/as-anger-toward-belarus-mou...

The US (really its NATO allies) made no attempt to arrest Snowden (not that he was present) on the Morales plane. They simply said you can't fly him out over NATO airspace. If they wanted to pull the trick used here, they would have let Morales into German airspace and then intercepted the aircraft and forced it down. They did not.

You can't fly over here. And you also don't have enough gas to go anywhere else. See, I'm not really forcing you to do anything.

> And you also don't have enough gas to go anywhere else.

This is just laughably spun. That airplane was fueled up for a flight To South America. Pretending like somehow it had to go through Germany or else run out of gas is just ridiculous. Turn around, fuel up in Moscow where you took off from, and fly back to the east if you want. It's an airplane. Don't be silly.

And it's a digression anyway. Even if this would have prevented Morales from reaching Bolivia in that jet, it's STILL not the same thing as forcing his plane down with threat of arms, forcing an evacuation, and arresting his passengers.

I have seen this line of whataboutist reasoning as a counterpoint in every single forum that approaches this topic.

I can't understand how such a contrived equalization is spread in so many different forums.

The other replies make excellent, well-sourced points for the distinction of the Morales and Belarusian situations, so I won't repeat them. It seems easy to understand and prove this distinction.

I'm genuinely curious if this whataboutist reasoning could be contributed to by an active campaign to muddy the Belarus discussion or just anti-west/pro-anarchy idealisms.

As someone who has brought this up in previous discussions, I just want people to criticize both events (not necessarily equally) and pressure their own governments to be better instead of forgetting Snowden, who is still not able to go back home or to most of the western world.

It is asinine to compare the two situations. Greenwald is wrongly equating the two together for his puppeteers.

1) Snowden had already been charged at that point and was running from the law. Morales's plane was diverted because it was believed to be providing passage to a criminal. While I don't know what Snowden did was right or wrong, it is clear that Snowden broke laws. His intentions might have been good but he broke some very serious laws.

2) Roman Protasevich, on the other hand, is a blogger. He hasn't released any state secrets that he swore an oath to protect.

Even if you believe that there's little difference between Snowden and Protasevich, the scenarios are clearly different. Rescinding permission to transit is a far cry from falsely reporting a bomb threat, backing it up with military force, and then searching the plane and taking multiple passengers into custody as a condition of the plane's release.

> Rescinding permission to transit

Thought experiment: what could have been the immediate consequences of disregarding that rescindment and continuing with the flightplan as filed?

They might have been intercepted by military. It is doubtful that they would have been shot down, but it would have been legal to do so.

The big difference is: No one forced them to land at a specific location -- they could have turned around and fly all the way back to Russia had they desired to do so. They landed in Austria because they decided to go to a neutral country and that they wanted to avoid NATO. It is fairly obvious that not letting someone enter is very different from letting enter and then coerce.

> they could have turned around and fly all the way back to Russia had they desired to do so.

Not sure if it's that simple, the plane has limited fuel and if they are banned from most of Europe's airspace on the way back it might become inevitable to choose between unauthorized entry or crashing down. And that's assuming Russia would also not ban them, which is also a risk when you're already in the air.

Same as Snowden, Roman Protasevich is fugitive wanted by a country’s law enforcement. There’s a warrant and all.

Morales was the President of Bolivia. Thought experiment -- if a country like China or Brazil forced Air Force One down to search, how do you think the Americans would react?

It was really rather close to an act of war. There's a reason the Austrians rushed their president out of bed to go have tea with Morales while he waited.

Asinine Puppeteers

Great way to start a debate.

Snowden case is worse than Protasevich. They diverted a plane of a president of another country. Snowden dennounced a government that was breaking the law. He wasn't convicted of anything, so he as innocent.

The two cases are a menace to democratic societies. I'm appalled that someone can find one terrible and the other one something normal. Great example of double standards.

The whataboutism is exhausting.

The caa.gov.by news release has a much more complete (Belarusian-sourced) transcript than the edited Reuters one: http://caa.gov.by/ru/news-ru/view/1-203/

EDIT: copy-pasta from (Belarusian) source https://gist.github.com/SpComb/849b97bae720cb77ab4c43ef92dae...

You can not possibly trust their version.

Indeed, based on the caa.gov.by domain this is presumably an authentic/official Belarus release, so you need to interpret it as such - it's their version of the story.

but you can blindly trust reuters?

More than Belarus? Yes.

Reuters seems to have reposted a shorter version of the .by statement. They should have waited until Lithuania publishes their transcript or some amateur listening station releases their audio recording.

"Resource Limit Is Reached" :-(

Google Cache currently has a copy: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp...

> Following are excerpts from the transcript, which Reuters was unable to verify.

Why do they even post it then?

Because the source is likely good enough to post.

MSNBC reported on some CNN reporting the other week, while acknowledging that they haven't independently verified it yet. MSNBC was not saying that CNN isn't credible, it's just that they like to clarify that they haven't verified it themselves yet.

ATC traffic is still unencrypted right? I'd assume multiple parties have recordings.

Yes, still unencrypted but I don't think any ATCs upload their recordings themselves. It's volunteers that record and upload recordings to sites like liveatc.net. So it requires that someone was already recording the ATC at Minsk for this recording to be available. Not sure how big the aviation community is in Belarus but I took a quick look and couldn't find anything.

Absolutely. You can listen in via pages like https://www.liveatc.net/. There are even recordings but the list isn't complete obviously: https://www.liveatc.net/recordings.php

Because (in the modern news cycle) being first is more important than the risk of being wrong?

To manipulate opinions.

Hmm, I'm more curious in reading the interaction when they bring up the fighter jet. Does anyone have a link to that?

I'm getting Access Denied to the article. It seems to be available on archive.org [0]...

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210525165724/https://www.reute...

> ATC: They say code is red.

Shouldn't ATC just say the code is red instead of trying to distance him/herself from it? Could any pilots here provide more context?

Private pilot here. ATC are usually trained to follow very specific dialogues, and pilots are trained to expect them. ATC and pilots are also together in somewhat of a fraternity. This would be a very unusual dialogue and so it makes sense to me that the ATC would feel the need to decorate the instruction, given that it is not one the pilot nor ATC would have ever participated in before.

The controller[s] were probably just as powerless as the pilot (considering the fighter escort). Get that plane to land, period.

Were they reading from a script and did they improvise?

The pilot is not powerless at all in "usual" emergencies. Declaring an emergency allows them to do pretty much anything. Once you get hijacked by a fighter plane though, that's a different story.

> The pilot is not powerless at all in "usual" emergencies. Declaring an emergency allows them to do pretty much anything.

Arguably once you are within firing range of two Mig-29's, the power dynamics changes slightly.

That's what I said in the only part of my response you didn't quote, yes.

Looking forward to read the transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder. Curious to know whether the pilots knew or suspected that there were intelligence operatives on board.

Are airliners in contact with their airlines, via say satelite phone?

Would the pilot be able to verify with Ryanair HQ whether they know about the bomb threat they are being fed from ATC?

Of course when the recomendation is accompanied by a fighter jet one doesn't have a choice regardless, but I'm still curious whether they are at ATC's mercy for information.

I would imagine that a pilot couldn't give two fucks about what the airline has to say when they think it's a life safety issue.

Given that it's simple for anyone to setup a powerful radio to spoof ATC, and it probably would be too hard to sabotage the real ATC radio, I'm surprised planes haven't been hijacked like this before, but without the use of official ATC.

That seems quite different from what I read last few days.

This transcript was released by belarussian authorities

So it was a fake bomb threat coming from the government.

Unbelievable that they'd go through this charade to arrest ~Snowden~ Protasevich.

Denying access to airspace of a private plane feels a little different than forcing a commercial plane to land with threat (and real actions) of violence. The level of crimes involved is also an important distinction. What Snowden did is illegal in pretty much every single country in the world (if committed against that country). On the other hand, what Protasevich did, many countries have laws to protect such actions. I'm not saying I agree with how either situation was handled (or laws involved, etc), but a 1:1 correlation between the two is ignoring important details.

I think you're choosing an arbitrary standard to defend your narrative. "Protasevich broke laws, but these are not laws that we consider bad."

I could also say that "being a whistleblower about a government agency violating the rights of millions of it's citizens" is something that Western democracies claim to protect, when it's not happening to themselves.

The denying permission vs kidnapping distinction does seem important though, regardless of motives doesn’t it?

To me it seems minor in the grand scheme of things. It's still trickery. I assume that in the Snowden case the permissions were withdrawn precisely to force a landing in a country where Snowden could be arrested. Belarus doesn't have the same alliances, so they resort to dirtier trickery to accomplish the same goal

It definitely is not. Denying someone access to airspace the way they did for Snowden to a gov’t level official is the equivalent of a bouncer stopping just the head of a competing club from entering - so the cops could grab him. Not seen as supportive, but not that crazy.

What happened in this case is the state level equivalent of holding someone and their friends who were walking on the sidewalk in front of your house at gun point - and then dragging the one you thought had spray painted your house a week earlier into your basement never to be seen again.

There is zero expectation that someone would or could use state level military assets to force a civil airplane flying under legal authorization and long standing agreements with no expectation of it landing in your country, under the flag of another nation, to grab someone you like.

It’s not like it hasn’t been possible, it’s just exceptionally hostile to everyone else and in violation of pretty much every international norm.

I don't disagree with you. Yes, one is worse than the other.

The point that I'm making is that the distinction is dwarfed by the baseness of the paradigm itself: politically motivated interference with airliners in flight, to force a landing and arrest people in transit who are currently not within your jurisdiction. Anyway you want to look at it this happened in both cases, and we shouldn't be celebrating "ooh, but technically, we just withdrew permissions so it's not that bad is it?"

But that is my point - the morales flight incident wasn't an airliner. Near as I can dig up, there is no evidence anyone but Morales was on it and staff. It's more equivalent to stopping an officials car (via roadblock) than the hijacking of a civil airliner at gunpoint (or fighter jet point).

It's not a distinction without a difference, these are big differences with many non-subtle distinctions.

Laws don't really work in countries like Russia or Belarus. Vague laws that encompass anything under the sun + complete lack of judiciary independence means that laws are whatever Lukashenko, Putin, or a careerist prosecutor (who needs convictions) wants them to be in a particular case. There is a saying in Russian speaking countries "Был бы человек, а статья найдётся" which can be roughly translated as "For every man, there's a law to convict him under".

They do it more often than you think. For another one see this https://112.international/society/belavias-passenger-plane-f... . Precisely the same action but by the good guys, so no shit-storm in the media.

Every time someone makes this comparison all it does is strengthen Lukashenko and Putin's propaganda machine. It doesn't help Protasevich, it doesn't help Snowden, and it doesn't create room for any positive political change.

If the comparison to a recent event is strengthening the propaganda machine of those regimes, that says a lot more about said recent event than it does about those regimes.

It's an apt comparison. And if we don't like the consequences, all the more reason to reflect on our own actions

How is it apt? In one case a fake bomb threat and a fighter jet force land a commercial flight for political reasons of a despot. on the other side refusal to allow air travel through sovereign air space of democratic countries, and was "downed" after failing to comply. This is far from apt comparison.

politically motivated interference with airliners in flight, to force a landing and arrest people in transit who are currently not within your jurisdiction

You are assuming there is a neutral third party. Yes, the comparison does strengthen Putin's propaganda machine. But not mentioning it strengthens the US propaganda machine. You are picking sides either way.

Not mentioning it does nothing. The US propaganda machine is not hurt in any way by mentioning it. It happened nearly a decade ago and is not really a similar situation in any way except that it involved a plane.

It wasn't similar because Snowden wasn't actually on that plane.

If he was, you think he wouldn't be arrested and would just fly with Morales to Bolivia? The agents that searched the plane was just there to say hi?

> Not mentioning it does nothing.

I don't understand how you assert this.

It is mostly testing Biden administration. First Israel now Belarus. Probably more disruption is coming as so far responses are weak.

What about the claim that there was a bomb on that plane? From what I have read there was an email sent from a protonmail account and was talking about the Israel/Hamas situation.

Are there any developments in that field?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/24/hamas-rejects-belar...

If one attempts to scratch the facade of a "great" long-ruling leader one will be torn down with all available means. Regardless whether the leader is a chancellor of a developed country, member of a major political dynasty in superpower country, or a head of a poor authocratic state. Only difference is Belarus cannot afford to buy some positive press. Go ahead western world, agitate these poor youngsters to hop into abyss. They don't seem to be aware that the stake is not IG sponsorship deal but their life.

Sorry, but it sounds like you're making death threats.

It's a mere observation.

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