The airliner carrying 126 passengers was flying from Athens (Greece) to Vilnius (Lithuania) but was forced to land in Minsk (Belarus) over a false bomb threat. Upon landing, Belarusian authorities detained Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich and his then girlfriend Sofia Sapega, a citizen of Russia.
On behalf of Lithuania, Minister of Transport and Communications Marius Skuodis thanked the ICAO and its incident investigation team for the complex work carried out. The minister stressed that the final report provides much additional information consistently describing the course of events and providing a better understanding of the circumstances of the incident.
After the consideration of the fact-finding results, including an interview and audio recordings from the air traffic controller in Belarusian capital Minsk, the ICAO Council concluded that the bomb threat against the Ryanair flight was deliberately false and endangered flight safety, while the threat was communicated to the flight crew on the instructions of senior government officials of Belarus.
The ICAO Council also stated that the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the safety of Civil Aviation (Montreal Convention) and the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) were violated.
The findings of the report will be conveyed to all ICAO member states. The report will be forwarded to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for consideration and any appropriate action.
