Ryanair Flight 4978

Ryanair Flight 4978 was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from Athens International Airport, Greece, to Vilnius Airport, Lithuania, operated by a Boeing 737-800 owned by Buzz, a Polish subsidiary of the Irish airline Ryanair. On 23 May 2021, while in Belarusian airspace, it was diverted by the Belarusian government to Minsk National Airport due to alleged claims of a Hamas bombing attempt, where two of its passengers, opposition activist and journalist Roman Protasevich and his then girlfriend Sofia Sapega, were arrested by authorities. The aircraft was allowed to depart after seven hours, reaching Vilnius eight and a half hours behind schedule.

The act was condemned by the European Union (EU), NATO, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, among others, and by some civil aviation authorities, while Russian officials backed Belarus. The EU and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued directives halting European airlines from flying over Belarusian airspace. The incident led to the eventual closing of the Embassy of Belarus in Canada.

Incident

On 23 May 2021, Ryanair Flight 4978 (Athens–Vilnius), operated by the Polish subsidiary Buzz, a Boeing 737-800 carrying six crew members and 126 passengers, was diverted to Minsk National Airport after ground authorities reported a bomb on board, whilst the aircraft was 45 nmi south of Vilnius and 90 nmi west of Minsk, but still in Belarusian airspace.

The Department of Aviation of Belarus claimed that an email was received in the generic mailbox info@airport.by containing the following text at 09:25 UTC (12:25 local):

The information later obtained from the email server by the Fact-Finding Investigation Team of the International Civil Aviation Organization showed that such an email had been sent to Minsk Airport at 09:56 (12:56 local).

This message was sent to a total of six recipients in separate emails to the airports of Vilnius, Athens, Sofia, Bucharest, Kyiv and Minsk, with the first five sent while FR4978 was flying over Ukrainian airspace, immediately prior to entering Belarusian airspace.

According to the airline, its pilots were notified by Belarusian authorities of "a potential security threat on board" and were instructed to land the aircraft in Minsk. The aircraft had entered Belarusian airspace at 12:30, and the "bomb threat" was passed on by Belarusian air traffic control (ATC) immediately afterwards. At 12:33, air traffic control mentioned an e-mail from terrorists sent to the Minsk airport.

According to Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary, the pilots were told by Belarusian ATC that there was a bomb on board which would be detonated if the aircraft entered Lithuanian airspace, hence the need to divert to Minsk. O'Leary said that the pilots tried to seek advice from Ryanair but were lied to by Belarusian ATC, who told them company representatives were not answering the phone.

According to his press service, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko personally ordered that the flight be redirected to Minsk with a Belarusian Air Force MiG-29 fighter escort. However, the ICAO fact-finding task force later determined the MiG-29 was tasked with communications back-up and to protect Minsk, and did not approach nor escort FR4978. The Belarusian government news agency BelTA said that the pilots had asked to land in Minsk. Both Ryanair and Belarusian law enforcement said that no bombs were found on board.

The flight course of FR4978 over Belarus became unusual even before making the U-turn. Based on Flightradar24 raw data, it was noted that the aircraft did not start to descend over Belarus, even though this is usually done in preparation for landing in Vilnius.