The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council has expressed its concern over “gaps in information provided by Belarus” about the May 23, 2021, forced landing of Ryanair Flight 4978 in Minsk, Belarus, where authorities arrested a dissident journalist who was a passenger on the flight.
The Council also was concerned about inconsistencies involving “crucial aspects of the factual reconstruction of the events,” ICAO said in a statement issued after the Council met Monday to review the ICAO Secretariat’s report on its investigation of the event.
The report, released earlier in January, said that ICAO investigators could not confirm the Belarus account of the event, which claimed the Boeing 737-800 was forced to land because of a threat that a bomb had been placed in the airplane.
The report “highlighted that the bomb threat against FR4978 was deliberately false and had endangered the safety of an aircraft in flight,” the statement said. The report also …
