Lukashenko followed the example set by the Morales precedent

Imants Vīksne schedule25.mai 2021

Countries have the right to intercept and land civil aircraft flying in their airspace, but this right should not be exercised to capture the political opposition. This has once happened when European allies forced the Bolivian presidential plane to land without justification.

At altitudes of 10 kilometers, planes are very rarely affected by anything that happens on the ground or is organized below. The interception of flight FR4978 was one such event. Why do airplanes from the European Union and NATO have to fly over countries where things happen that the intelligent Western society dislikes? Because it is cheaper to fly in a straight line, because those are the set routes and it is believed that there is nothing that can threaten civil airplanes so high above the clouds.

Like an unpredictable volcano

The fact that this view is misleading was already demonstrated by the crash of a Malaysian plane over Eastern Ukraine in 2014. Flight MH17 was hit by a rocket fired from the ground. Aviation security experts then concluded that the risks had not been adequately assessed and that no one should be allowed to fly so close to a war zone. Rarely, but unpredictable things do happen in aviation. Artūrs Kokars, Director of the Aviation Department of the Ministry of Transport, compares: "It's like a volcano eruption." And in the case of the aircraft intercepted and detained by Belarus on Sunday, the volcano was President Alexander Lukashenko. In theory, everyone knows that the most unexpected eruptions can come from the last European dictator, but it is almost impossible to prepare for them. And the most difficult thing about the interception of the FR4978 Athens-Vilnius flight is that countries have the right to intercept civilian transport if they deem it justified. And Belarus is now reporting that it has acted in the interests of European security. More precisely, Alexander Lukashenko acted, as it was his personal order to send a fighter jet and land the civilian aircraft in Minsk.

What the convention says

After 7 hours of forced stay in Minsk, the Ryanair airplane has just arrived in Vilnius.

European Union and NATO leaders may condemn President Lukashenko, threaten never to fly over Belarus again, but the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as the Chicago Convention, with latter amendments provides for the possibility of giving orders to foreign aircraft and foreign aircraft must comply with these orders, which was also the case for voyage FR4978.

This is stated in Article 3' of the Chicago Convention:

"a) The contracting States recognize that every State must refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight and that, in case of interception, the lives of persons on board and the safety of aircraft must not be endangered (..)

b) The contracting States recognize that every State, in the exercise of its sovereignty, is entitled to require the landing at some designated airport of a civil aircraft flying above its territory without authority or if there are reasonable grounds to conclude that it is being used for any purpose inconsistent with the aims of this Convention (..)

c) Every civil aircraft shall comply with an order given in conformity with paragraph b) of this Article (..)"

Politicians can, of course, make immediate statements about the evil Lukashenko, who put all the plane's passengers and crew in a dangerous situation because of one opposition worker sitting on the plane. However, the incident will need to be investigated to determine the circumstances underlying it and whether it is consistent or inconsistent with what the Convention allows or prohibits.

Fake bombs are also forbidden

The Belarussian authorities report that the plane was diverted to Minsk due to a report that the plane had a bomb on it. There was no bomb on the plane and criminal proceedings were instituted for the false report. More can be read here.

It is in the context of this false report that another internationally binding instrument can be looked at: the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation. Also known as the 1971 Montreal Convention. Article 1 prohibits both the creation of an actual threat to aircraft and the provision of false information:

“1. Any person commits an offence if he unlawfully and intentionally:

e) communicates information which he knows to be false, thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight."

Accordingly, Belarus is now puzzled by the angry reaction of the West, because the plane was landed for general safety reasons. Belarusian critics, meanwhile, have speculated that the report of the bomb on the plane and its interception was a secret service operation to remove one passenger from the plane, who had been running from the Belarusian authorities.

Even if such a version eventually turns out to be true, it should be reminded that it is not just the uncivilized Lukashenko regime that is ready for such extraordinary action as the detention of a civilian plane. There is at least one other similar case in aviation history, the Morales precedent.

Snowden was not found with Morales

On July 1, 2013, the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, flew home to Bolivia from Moscow. However, European special services had false reports that Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency employee, was also flying onboard the plane with Morales, while he was hunted by the allies for disclosing confidential information. France, Italy and Spain therefore closed their airspace to this aircraft, Portugal refused to refuel the aircraft, and Morales' plane was eventually forced to land in Austria. Later, when the plane was searched and Snowden was not on board, the leaders of the countries involved in the operation apologized to the President of Bolivia, but it was virtually impossible to improve relations at that point. This case was a clear demonstration that seemingly small national interests - to arrest one person at the request of the allies - could outweigh any conventions and diplomatic immunity taken together.