Ryanair aircraft MINSK, Jan 25The head of the aviation department of the Ministry of Transport of Belarus, Artem Sikorsky, said that the ICAO report on the incident with the Ryanair plane that landed urgently in Minsk in May last year does not provide answers to important questions and, in fact, is unfinished. «Why is there such openness on our part, but on the other sides — and the records are erased, the information disappears, there are no reports, and the pilot does not give an interview … We fully provided all the negotiations — from the aircraft's entry into our airspace to departure,» Sikorsky said in an interview with the Belarus 1 TV channel shown on Tuesday. 
Protasevich said that the measure of restraint had been changed for him. Sikorsky wondered why the crew erased the recordings of the negotiations in the cockpit at the time of the decision to land in Belarus, without turning off the recorder during the stop in Minsk, why there were no negotiations between the pilot and the Lithuanian dispatcher, and also why the plane had already changed course near the border with Lithuania. He noted that there are no answers to these questions. “It turns out that the report has not been completed,” the head of the department stated. Sikorsky noted that the Belarusian side was open during the ICAO investigation of the incident and the organization’s experts arrived in Minsk, in particular, Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapieha, who were detained during the plane’s landing in Minsk, agreed to conversation, different questions could be asked. «What position did they choose? Take and run,» he said. According to the head of the department, ICAO experts «asked initially (they said — ed.) that they would like to meet with Mr. Protasevich and Ms. Sapega, they even arrived at the interview site, were in the building, but literally 10 minutes before to conduct interviews, ICAO representatives abruptly changed their plans. «Sikorsky also drew attention to the fact that after landing at the Minsk airport, the pilot did not leave the aircraft, he, leading the evacuation of passengers, did not immediately start it and decided to take out 5 people, although according to instructions, they had to leave the plane as quickly as possible.Lukashenka reacted to the ICAO report on the incident with the Ryanair planeA Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius made an emergency landing at the Minsk airport on May 23, 2021 due to a report of mining, which was subsequently not confirmed. On board was Roman Protasevich, the founder of the Telegram channel Nexta, recognized as extremist in Belarus. While checking documents, he was detained. A criminal case has been initiated against Protasevich under several articles, including the article «organization of mass riots», he faces up to 15 years in prison. Together with him, a Russian woman Sofya Sapega was detained, who is accused by Minsk of inciting hostility and organizing violence against the security forces through an administered Telegram channel. After the incident, European countries said that the Belarusian authorities forced the plane to land under a far-fetched pretext. This was denied in Minsk, arguing that they only recommended landing, and the decision was made by the pilot. After the incident, some airlines began to bypass the airspace of Belarus. The European Union has banned the use of aircrafts of Belarusian air carriers of its airspace and airports. ICAO launched an investigation into the incident, prepared a report and scheduled a discussion of further actions on January 31.
