Polish intelligence services release conversation between Minsk air traffic controller and Ryanair pilot

Polish intelligence agencies have released an audio recording of conversations between a Minsk air traffic controller and the pilot of the Ryanair plane, which had been forcibly boarded in Minsk on May 23. The recording shows another person’s voice who was in the same room as the air traffic controller.

According to Polish intelligence, there was a KGB officer near the controller. The officer was on the phone with someone called Andrey Anatolyevich.

The recording has the dispatcher’s voice telling the pilot about the bomb on board and the recommendation to land the airplane in Minsk. To the pilot’s clarifying question, whose recommendation it was, the officer replied:

“It is our recommendation.”

Those were the words repeated by the air traffic controller.

After the prompts of the “coordinator,” the dispatcher told the pilot that the message code was red.

On December 8, the New York Times reported that amid the migration crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border, Polish intelligence officers accommodated a refugee from Belarus who worked as an air traffic controller at Minsk airport. He was the one who gave details of the hijacking of the Ryanair plane, on which Raman Pratasevich and Sofia Sapiega were flying.

The next day, the Mazowieckie Department for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor’s Office of Poland published new data on the investigation of the Ryanair plane hijacking.

According to him, there was a KGB officer in the control tower on May 23, giving instructions to the air traffic controller, who was in contact with the plane’s pilot. The decision for the aircraft to land in Minsk was made by a KGB officer, who reported to someone on the phone.

belsat.eu