Belarus: The Ryanair aircraft was not intercepted or forced to land

Minsk, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- According to the Belarusian News Agency, Sikorsky, director of the Aviation Bureau of the Ministry of Transport of Belarus, said on the 18th that the International Civil Aviation Organization accepted the evidence provided by the Belarusian side, which showed that the Irish Ryanair passenger plane that landed in Minsk in May last year was not intercepted or forced to land.

The International Civil Aviation Organization released a message on the 17th that the passenger plane landed in Minsk urgently at that time because it received the news that there was a bomb on the plane, and the organization could not blame any country for the emergency landing.

The Ministry of Transport of Belarus received a report from the International Civil Aviation Organization on the forced landing of the passenger plane on the 17th. Sikorsky responded on the 18th that the content of the report proved that the previous allegations by some countries against Belarus intercepting the airliner with fighters were unrealistic.

Sikorsky said he was surprised that the plane's crew did not save the contents of the call they had made when they decided to make an emergency landing in Minsk, and that the flight recorder did not record it. Sikorsky said Belarus would continue to cooperate with ICAO and raise objections from Belarus during the organization's consideration of the above-mentioned report on January 31, and hoped to lodge complaints against the sanctions of Belarus by some States in this regard.

According to Belarusian media, an Irish Ryanair passenger plane landed urgently at Minsk International Airport on May 23 last year due to bomb threats. The aircraft was inspected for no explosive devices and subsequently re-flown to lithuania, its destination. Western media reported that Belarus claimed that there might be a bomb on board the airliner and sent fighter planes to "force" the airliner to land in Minsk, and then arrested Roman Protasevich, a Belarusian journalist who supported the Belarusian opposition, who flew on the plane. The United States and the European Union announced a number of sanctions against Belarus as a result of the incident.