A hijacked flight or a diplomatic trap? The mystery of Ryanair 4978

Countries & Cities · Published 15 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In May 2021, a routine flight from Athens to Vilnius was diverted into Belarusian airspace under the guise of a bomb threat. While the plane sat on the tarmac, a high-profile journalist was arrested. Was it a genuine security crisis or a calculated act of state-sponsored kidnapping?

On May 23, 2021, Ryanair Flight 4978 was diverted to Minsk National Airport after Belarusian authorities claimed to receive an email from 'Hamas soldiers' threatening to blow up the aircraft. The message alleged that the flight was carrying participants of the Delphi Economic Forum. However, the timeline of this claim is highly contested. While Belarusian officials claimed the threat was received at 12:25 local time, independent investigations by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) found the email was actually sent at 12:56 local time—nearly half an hour after the plane had already been notified of the threat. The incident resulted in the immediate arrest of Roman Protasevich, a Belarusian opposition activist and journalist, and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega. While the Belarusian government framed the diversion as a necessary security measure to prevent a bombing, many international observers, including the EU and the United States, viewed it as a premeditated hijacking.

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary described the event as a deliberate act, noting that Belarusian air traffic control allegedly provided conflicting information to the pilots, claiming company representatives were unreachable when they tried to seek advice. The geopolitical fallout was swift. The European Union and several other nations issued directives halting flights over Belarusian airspace, and the incident led to the closure of the Belarusian Embassy in Canada. Despite the dramatic narrative of a 'hybrid war' and 'bomb threats' from Switzerland, no explosives were ever found on the aircraft. The flight was eventually allowed to depart after a seven-hour delay, reaching its destination over eight hours behind schedule.

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