OTTAWA, May 27. /TASS/. Russia has supported a fair and transparent investigation into an act of illegal interference in the activities of civil aviation during an unscheduled session of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) over an incident with a Ryanair flight, Russian envoy to the organization Sergey Gudkov told TASS on Thursday.
"We supported the fair and transparent investigation into the act of illegal interference in the activities of civil aviation by the Air Navigation and Legal Bureaus of the ICAO Secretariat," he said. At the same time, the representative emphasized that many countries, including the UK and France, think that this was the aviation incident which needs to be investigated from the point of view of safety risks for the plane’s crew and its passengers, while Russia insisted that this case should be viewed based on Annex 17 to the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation on the security of international air transport.
He also stated that the Belarusian side acted in full compliance with the Chicago Convention and the ICAO rules and standards as guidelines demand in a bomb threat situation aboard a plane. "There was no forced landing of the Ryanair flight in Minsk, neither an air traffic controller, nor the scrambled fighter jet of the Belarusian Air Force forced a pilot to change direction. This is clear from the decoded radio exchange between the pilot and the controller," the Russian representative emphasized.
He regretted that Russia’s position as well as that of China and South Africa that supported it was not heard. "There was an impression that remarks by Europeans were staged in advance and each country played its part," the envoy noted. He also did not answer a question on whether an interim result of the ICAO’s investigation may be made public as early as late June. Earlier on Tuesday, Ireland’s Department of Transport reported that the first results would be published by June 25.
On Thursday, the organization held an emergency session of 36 diplomatic representatives in the ICAO Council over the incident with a Ryanair flight in Belarusian airspace on May 23. It was also attended by representatives of Belarus, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.
On May 23, a Vilnius-bound Ryanair plane that took off from Athens made an emergency landing at Minsk International Airport after a reported bomb threat. A MiG-29 fighter jet alert crew was scrambled to escort the plane. After the landing, the plane was inspected and no bomb was found inside. The Belarusian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into a false bomb alert. Among the passengers on the flight was Roman Protasevich, one of the co-founders of the Nexta Telegram channel, which Minsk recognizes as extremist. Protasevich was detained by law enforcement officials once the plane had landed in the Belarusian capital. Russian national Sofia Sapega was also detained. On Sunday evening, the plane left Minsk airport and continued to Vilnius.