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.
Aircraft
The aircraft involved was a four-year-old Boeing 737-800, registered in Poland, registration SP-RSM. The aircraft entered service with Ryanair in May 2017, registered EI-FZX in Ireland, and in November 2019, it was transferred to Ryanair Sun (now Buzz) as SP-RSM on the Polish aircraft registry.
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 nautical miles (83 km; 52 mi) south of Vilnius and 90 nautical miles (170 km; 100 mi) 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):
We, Hamas soldiers, demand that Israel cease fire in the Gaza Strip. We demand that the European Union abandon its support for Israel in this war. We know that the participants of Delphi Economic Forum are returning home on May 23 via flight FR4978. A bomb was planted onto this aircraft. If you don't meet our demands the bomb will explode on May 23 over Vilnius. Allahu Akbar.
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.
Passengers
Upon landing in Minsk, the Belarusian opposition activist Roman Protasevich was removed from the aircraft and arrested on the grounds that he was listed on a Belarusian wanted list. His girlfriend at the time, Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen, was also removed and detained without explanation. The European Humanities University in Vilnius confirmed she was detained and demanded her release. Sapega faced three criminal charges "each of which carry sentences of between three and 15 years in prison" and was subsequently sentenced to six years in prison for "inciting social enmity and discord" and "illegally collecting and disseminating information about the private life of an unnamed person without his consent".
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called for an investigation of the incident by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Belarus had placed Protasevich on a list of "individuals involved in terrorist activity" the previous year for his role in anti-government protests. Opposition leader Pavel Latushko claimed that Belarusian ATC threatened to shoot down the passenger plane if it did not make an emergency landing in Minsk. According to some passengers, Protasevich asked the cabin crew for refuge, but was refused because of Ryanair legal agreements. As he left the aircraft, Protasevich independently told another passenger that "the death penalty awaits me here". Another source said that Protasevich faced 15 years' imprisonment for his support of "terrorist groups" in Belarus.
According to sources close to Tsikhanouskaya, Protasevich noticed that he was under surveillance at the Athens airport. In his messages, he said that a man next to him at the line and the checkpoint tried to take photos of his travel documents. Additionally, Tadeusz Giczan, a member of the Nexta Telegram channel, which was previously edited by Protasevich, said that officers of the KGB had been on the flight and had "initiated a fight with the Ryanair crew", insisting that there was a bomb on board the aircraft. Lina Beišinė, spokeswoman for the Lithuanian Airports state enterprise, told AFP that Minsk National Airport had said the flight was diverted "due to a conflict between a member of the crew and the passengers".
In addition to Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega, three passengers disembarked in Minsk, including two Belarusians and one Greek citizen. Following speculation that the passengers were members of the Belarusian KGB, Belarusian state television aired a video of three people saying that they had chosen to stay in Minsk; one was a Greek man, who said he was travelling to Minsk anyway and would have otherwise taken a connecting flight from Vilnius to Minsk. A Greek government official stated that an investigation had not indicated a connection between the Greek national and the incident. The other two passengers also said that they wanted to disembark in Minsk.
The aircraft was allowed to depart after 7 hours on the ground in Minsk, reaching Vilnius 8.5 hours late. Passengers noted having to wait 2.5 hours without water, toilet breaks or phone calls, while 50 to 60 Belarusian security officers at Minsk airport carried out a search that included checking the belly of the aircraft for bombs.
Aftermath
Belarusian government
Following the incident, the Belarusian Ministry of Transport announced that it had set up a commission to investigate the forced landing, stating that it would notify the ICAO and IATA about the investigation's progress and publish a report shortly thereafter.
On 24 May 2021, the director of the Department of Aviation of the Ministry of Transport of Belarus, Artyom Sikorsky, read out an e-mail letter, which they said was sent to Minsk airport on 23 May. This message, signed by "Hamas soldiers", included demands to Israel to "cease fire in the Gaza Strip" and for the European Union to end its support of Israel. If the demands were not met, the Ryanair aircraft would be blown up over Vilnius, according to the e-mail. Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel called the Belarusian explanation "completely implausible". Hamas denied that it was in any way connected to the incident. Journalists discovered that the e-mail published by Belarusian authorities had been received at 12:57, 24 minutes after Belarusian air traffic control notified the Ryanair flight of the bomb threat.
On 25 May 2021, the Belarusian Department of Aviation published its transcription of radio communications between Belarusian air traffic control and the FR4978 pilots. According to the transcript, the Belarusian flight operator originally told the pilots that they "have information from special services" about the bomb on board, later claiming that the "airport security stuff [sic] informed they received e-mail". When the pilot asked whether it was Vilnius airport that received the e-mail, or Athens, the flight operator said that the bombing alert was received by "several airports". When the pilot asked whose recommendation it had been to land in Minsk, he was informed by the flight operator that it was "our recommendations". The transcript indicated that the pilot initially decided to circle at his present position, then later decided to divert to Minsk airport on the recommendation. As of 25 May 2021, this transcript could not be confirmed by independent parties. According to The Wall Street Journal, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary rejected the version of events presented by Belarusian government officials and called the situation a "premeditated hijacking".
On 26 May 2021, Lukashenko made his first public remarks about the incident in a speech to the Belarusian parliament. He said that he acted "legally" and claimed that "ill-wishers from outside the country and from inside the country changed their methods of attack on the state", referring to it as "hybrid war". He also accused Protasevich of planning a "bloody rebellion", without giving details. Lukashenko added that the bomb threat had come from Switzerland; however, the Swiss government said it had no knowledge of any bomb threat on the flight.
EU economic sanctions
The Lithuanian cabinet banned all flights to and from Lithuania flying through Belarusian airspace, effective 00:00 GMT, 25 May (03:00 EEST). British transport secretary Grant Shapps instructed the Civil Aviation Authority to request that British airlines avoid Belarusian airspace. Belavia had been flying into Gatwick Airport prior to the incident. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed the government to halt air traffic with Belarus.
The EU held a meeting of leaders on 24 May 2021 in Brussels, Belgium. Before the meeting, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda called for the EU to impose fresh economic sanctions on Belarus. Calls were made by eight countries for flights over and to Belarus to be banned. Another suggestion was that ground traffic be banned from entering the EU from Belarus. At the meeting, it was agreed upon to prohibit EU-based airlines from flying through Belarusian airspace, ban Belarusian carriers from flying into EU airspace, and to implement a fresh round of sanctions.
On 26 May 2021, the European Union and the EU Aviation Safety Agency issued directives formally halting European airlines from flying over Belarusian airspace. The U.S. and the EU announced plans to impose punitive sanctions targeting key members of Lukashenko's government. In early June, Germany briefly stopped issuing flight permits to airlines from Russia for flights to Germany, after two Lufthansa flights were not issued permits to fly into Russia.
On 4 June 2021, the European Union banned Belarusian airlines from its airspace along with other economic sanctions. On 9 June 2021, the United States government announced it would implement new sanctions on Belarus. The United States, European Union, United Kingdom and Canada issued a joint statement on 21 June 2021 announcing further sanctions against members and supporters of the Belarusian government, as well as Belarusian state-owned companies. These included individual travel bans, asset freezes and other sanctions. Further measures taken were EU dual-use goods and technology export bans to Belarus, as well as trade bans on petroleum products, potassium chloride for the Belarusian potash industry, and goods used for the production of tobacco products.
Following the EU sanctions, Belarus was accused by the EU states of instigating the Belarus–European Union border crisis.