MINSK, January 11. /TASS/. The records of a Ryanair pilot with a Belarusian air traffic controller show signs of being edited, Andrei Motolko, deputy chief of the Belarusian Investigative Committee’s Minsk department, told the ONT television channel on Tuesday.
"This record has parts with traces of sound editing when several previously recorded sound tracks are combined into one, which indicates digital modification of the record," he said.
According to Artyom Sikorsky, head of the Belarusian transport ministry’s aviation department, such fakes are meant to justify delays in the publishing of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) final report of the probe into the Ryanair incident.
The Polish side said earlier, referring to the released audio record, that the Belarusian air controller who was contacting the Ryanair flight on May 23, 2021, was receiving instructions from an officer of the Belarusian KGB.
On May 23, 2021, the Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius 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 on board. It was later reported that among the passengers on that flight was Roman Protasevich wanted by the Belarusian authorities, one of the co-founders of the Nexta Telegram channel, which Minsk recognized as an extremist entity. He was detained by law enforcement agents. Russian national Sofia Sapega was also detained together with him.
Following the incident with a Ryanair flight, EU leaders banned Belarusian airlines from landing at EU airports and flying over the EU’s territory, also advising European carriers to prohibit their airliners from flying into Belarusian airspace. Over 20 countries closed their airspace to the Belarusian air carrier.
Minsk said earlier that ICAO, which had postponed the consideration of the incident investigation report, was demonstrating no willingness to cooperate with Belarus.
The final report on the Ryanair incident was to be considered at the 224th session in November 2021 but the ICAO commission had failed to draw it in due time and its consideration was postponed to the 225th session due to begin in mid-January.