ICAO Council to pursue “fact finding investigation” into Ryanair FR4978

The ICAO Council has expressed its “strong concern” at the apparent forced diversion of Ryanair Flight FR4978, a commercial passenger aircraft flying in Belarus airspace on Sunday, 23 May 2021. At a special meeting convened yesterday, the ICAO Governing Body underlined the importance of establishing the facts of what happened, and of understanding whether there had been any breach by any ICAO Member State of international aviation law, including the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) and its Annexes. Recalling Article 55 (e) of the Chicago Convention, the Council decided to undertake a fact-finding investigation of this event, and