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Only about 40km from the border: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/fr4978#27cce9a2

I wonder what would have happened if they just delayed until they were in lithuanian airspace.

EDIT: just realized there were fighter jets involved...




They could keep flying and force Belarus to shoot down a civilian airliner.

Might be a good way to start a war.


I don't think that Ryanair pilots are involved in diplomacy and want to risk their lifes for a foreign country.


Just tell them it’s a marketing opportunity! “We’re so cheap and dedicated to short flights that we ignore military jets trying to divert us!”


They wouldn't shoot it down. Paper handed pilot. The guy is probably going to get the death penalty so looks like Ryanair pretty much killed him.


Not sure why there is so much talk about death penalty - according to other sources these is 3 to 5 years of prison at max. That's of cause if the law doesn't change just for this guy in next few weeks.


The law doesn't have to change, we're talking about Belarus. He could just disappear in the prison system.


I think the dictatorship killed him. The pilots just made an unfortunate decision that was understandable given the lack of information and fighter jet on their wing.


Can you post a screenshot? I'm not seeing any flight path when I go to that link.


https://i.imgur.com/Ir9ucRM.png


How long would that have taken them to clear it? 5 minutes?


A comment on /r/de (or /r/europe?) estimated roughly 2 minutes ...


Why would NATO do anything about an aircraft from a neutral country ?


> Why would NATO do anything about an aircraft from a neutral country?

The aircraft's registration is SP-RSM, which is Polish:

* https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/fr4978#27cce9a2

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_registration_...

Poland is a member of NATO. Also, Lithuania and Greece, the source and destination of the flight, are also both in NATO.


I assume a Ryanair flight would also have had a lot of citizens of NATO countries on-board. I wonder what would have happened if it were a US flagged carrier.


My point was that Ireland relies on being surrounded by NATO countries but doesn't contribute anything to the costs of protecting their own airspace. TBF, it is making noises about maybe getting some fast jets at some point.


> My point was that Ireland

Ireland is not involved in this conversation. All elements are related to NATO countries.

Even the airline, Buzz (aka Ryanair Sun), which is the legal owner of the aircraft, is headquartered in Poland:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_(Ryanair)

* https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/boeing-737-800-sp-rsm...


It's merely a daughter company, owned by RyanAir Holdings. That's why RyanAir itself refers to the flight as (unsuprisingly) theirs.

There seems to be some sort of an orchestrated action behind spreading this distorted version of events - I see it on Twitter as well.


What is a neutral country? The flight started from Greece (NATO country) was going to Lithuania (NATO country) and the plane is registered in Poland (NATO country).


Ireland is a neutral country, it is the home of Ryanair.


It's just a commercial operator of the airplane. That doesn't matter much in the international aviation laws.




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