The Irish airline Ryanair commented on the emergency landing of its plane in Minsk, after which Roman Protasevich, one of the founders of the Belarusian opposition Telegram channel NEXTA, was detained.
"The crew of the Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius today (May 23 — ed.) was informed by the Belarusian air traffic control about a potential security threat on board and was instructed to change the course to the nearest airport Minsk," says the statement in Twitter.
Ryanair apologized to passengers for this "annoying delay, which occurred through no fault of the airline".
At the same time, not all passengers returned to the flight after checking the plane. The plane arrived in Vilnius without two Belarusians and four Russians.
The head of the Ryanair airline, Michael O'Leary, accused the Belarusian authorities of "air piracy" after the incident with the emergency landing of the plane in Minsk.
O'Leary rejected the claims against the pilots, assured that they did everything to complete the flight safely.
In his opinion, this is the first time such an incident has happened to a European airline.
"This is a case of state-sponsored theft ... state-sponsored piracy. We will instruct our crew, who did a phenomenal job, taking this plane and almost all passengers out of Minsk in six hours," said O'Leary.
He added that this incident "very scares" the passengers and the crew, since they were kept under armed guard and their bags were searched.
Let us remind you that a number of countries already called to ban flights over Belarus.
