On May 23, 2021, Ryanair flight FR-4978, flying from Athens to Lithuania with 126 passengers, including opposition activist and journalist Raman Pratasevich and six crew members, was diverted to Minsk airport amid a false bomb threat.
The Boeing 737 was in the Ukrainian airspace, about 5 minutes from Belarus airspace when Minsk Airport received e-mails.
The e-mail read, “We, Hamas soldiers, demand that Israel cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. We demand that the European Union abandon its support for Israel in this war. We know that the participants of the Delphi Economic Forum are returning home on May 23 via flight FR-4978. A bomb was planted onto this aircraft. If you don’t meet our demands, the bomb will explode on May 23 over Vilnius. Allahu Akbar.”
Minutes later, the same e-mails were received by Lithuania Airport, Athens Airport, and Sofia Airport. A total of six mails were sent from that account, but only four were received.
After contact was made between the aircraft and Minsk Airport, the controller stated, “We have information from special services that you have a bomb on board. The bomb can be activated over Vilnius. For security reasons, we recommend you land at Uniform Mike Mike Sierra”. Some 15 minutes after being informed by the ATC, the crew decided to divert to Minsk. They declared an emergency and selected their transponder to emergency code. A copy of the threat e-mail was requested but wasn’t provided. The crew also asked if there was any message from the company. Ryanair was informed about the situation, but they didn’t have any message for the crew.
As the crew was preparing for landing, one of the passengers started to panic. The passenger exclaimed, “I’m wanted there; they’ll kill me.” However, the crew said that the passenger wasn’t unruly or disruptive. A MIG-29 was also dispatched, but it was more than 50km away when the aircraft landed. After the hand-carry and luggage of passengers were screened, the plane was refuelled, and passengers boarded again. When the crew counted passengers, five were missing. The report also states that the Ryanair crew followed the standard operating procedures and requirements. Journalist and activist Raman Pratasevich was arrested on landing along with two other passengers and Pratasevich’s girlfriend Sofia Sapega.
Key Findings:
Only one e-mail was sent to Minsk Airport at 12:56 (local time). However, Belarus showed the FFIT a copy of the e-mail received at 12:25 (local time). However, information obtained from Switzerland didn’t show such e-mail being sent to the Minsk Airport Mailbox. The FFIT wasn’t provided with electronic copies of the mail. A screenshot was provided, so metadata wasn’t reviewable. Minsk airport claims that messages are only stored for seven days and are automatically overwritten. The first e-mail is crucial to explain the basis for communication. It can be presumed that the authorities of Belarus obtained it by other means which couldn’t be established.
Recommended diversion destination was Minsk Airport due to stated ” security reasons”. But the reasons weren’t mentioned. The assessments were also made by Minsk ACC Duty Supervisor only. The duty supervisor consulted with senior air traffic control staff only; no external consultation was made. The e-mail was sent to different airports, but how exactly the area surveillance controller or Minsk Duty Supervisor knew about sharing of e-mail with other airports isn’t clear.
Some video recordings from cameras adjacent to the parking stand 1 and inside the terminal weren’t provided. The Authorities of Belarus claim that all recordings weren’t available because a long time had passed since the event. The foreign minister of Greece believes this to be a state hijack. He believes that Belarus hijacked the aircraft. He added,” We condemn the illegal arrest of the Belarusian activist Roman Protasevich, who is threatened with the death penalty. Mr Protasevich was part of a delegation led by Belarussian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who recently attended the Delphi Forum.”
As the report concludes, some information was requested but wasn’t given to the team. The bomb threat was a false threat. The aircraft was searched in Belarus and Lithuania, but nothing was found. The Minsk ACC controller who was assigned to the RYR flight didn’t report after his vacation. The team had no information about his whereabouts and couldn’t contact him. There wasn’t any communication between the flight crew and OCC. If a communication line had been established, the course of events would have changed. Also, the flight crew had no idea about the MIG-29.
