5 cases of forced landing of aircraft of international airlines on the territory of other states

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The fact of the Ryan Air plane landing in Minsk is hotly discussed all over the world. The international community is outraged, condemned and threatened with new sanctions, as no explosive devices were found as a result of the verification of the message that the airliner was mined, but a detained passenger appeared. It has been suggested that the false mining report was fabricated, and that the detained person was the real target. However, this was far from the first time an aircraft had landed on the territory of another state.

Bandar Abbas, Iran, 23 February 2010

The forced landing of an airliner flying from Dubai to Bishkek pursued a very specific goal: the arrest of the leader of the "Soldiers of Allah" terrorist organization on board. As soon as Abdulmalek Rigi was detained, the plane went to its destination. The detainee was accused of many crimes committed by his organization and sentenced to death.

Ankara, Turkey, October 9, 2012

In this case, no arrests were made, and the purpose of the forced landing was to check for the presence of military cargo. The Turkish Air Force forced the plane of the Syrian airline to land, which was flying from Moscow to Damascus, in connection with the suspicion of transporting weapons. After checking, the Turkish authorities said that the cargo included components for the manufacture of missiles and radio communications, which were prohibited from transportation by passenger ships. After the seizure of the above equipment, the plane with 35 passengers on board set off on the route to Damascus.

Vienna, Austria, July 2, 2013

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, was aboard a Dassault Falcon 900 passenger aircraft, owned by the Bolivian Air Force and heading from Moscow. He made an emergency landing in Vienna due to the refusal of several European countries to provide permission for the ship to fly in their airspace. In turn, the revocation of the permission was associated with the search on the plane for Edward Snowden, a former CIA agent, who, by the way, was not there. The Bolivian president returned to his homeland on July 4, and after that several Latin American countries expressed their condemnation, regarding the forced imprisonment as an attempt on the life of the president of an independent country. The leadership of the countries that revoked the permission for the flight apologized, after which Evo Morales considered the conflict settled.

Kiev, Ukraine, October 21, 2016

The plane, flying from Kiev Zhuliany airport to Minsk and just 50 km from Belarus, was forced to return to Kiev. The order of the dispatch service did not contain any explanations, but from the side of Kiev, according to the testimony of the commander of the ship of the airline "Belavia", there was a threat to raise fighters into the air. Later, the SBU categorically refused this information. After landing a flight in Kiev, journalist Armen Martirosyan was removed from the plane. The plane then safely went to Minsk, and the detained journalist was released on the same day. The protest expressed by the President of Belarus forced the President of Ukraine Petro Porosheno to make a personal apology to Alexander Lukashenko, which ended the incident.

Minsk, Belarus, May 23, 2021

According to the official authorities of Belarus, at the time of receiving the message about the mining of the Ryan Air plane, the decision to make an emergency landing in Minsk was made directly by the commander of the aircraft. This is confirmed by the negotiations published by the Belarus TV channel between the crew and the dispatch service. The MiG-29 fighter was flown into the sky to assist a civilian aircraft in a safe landing. During the check of the plane for the presence of explosive devices, it turned out that among the passengers of the ship is Roman Protasevich, one of the founders of the Telegram channel NEXTA, who was detained by law enforcement officers, as he is wanted.

Post scriptum

In 2020, information was made public about a disrupted special operation, during which a passenger plane heading from Minsk to Istanbul would have landed in Kiev. More than 30 representatives of the private military company "Wagner" were supposed to be on board. They were planned to be detained after the forced landing of the airliner, but as a result of political games all the PMC members were arrested in Belarus and then returned to their homeland in Russia. This special operation was prepared by the Security Service of Ukraine with the support of the CIA, while the Ukrainian authorities categorically deny the very fact of the planned landing of the aircraft.

Forced aircraft landings, as we see, are extremely rare. In Soviet times, ordinary people decided to hijack an airplane even less often. More than half a century ago, in October 1970, in Batumi, passengers calmly set off for boarding flight No. 244, expecting to go down the ladder in Sukhumi or, a little later, in Krasnodar after half an hour. But during the flight, a real bloody drama broke out on board, a young stewardess died, almost all crew members were seriously injured. Pranas and Algirdas Brazinskas, 46 and 15 years old, respectively, made the first plane hijacking in the Soviet Union.