EU’s flight ban breached? A small armed Hungarian plane flew to Minsk

A Hungarian manufacturer’s plane flew to the boycotted country last week and then spent days in Minsk, even though an unusually severe punitive measure, a pan-European flight ban, was imposed on Belarus for forcing the Ryanair plane to the ground. According to Magnus Aircraft Zrt., the general flight ban does not apply to them.

A Hungarian plane landed on June 16 in the capital of Belarus. According to Flightradar, Magnus Aircraft Zrt.’s HA-XCN small aircraft arrived in Minsk from Debrecen. The two-seater Magnus Fusion spent four days at the airport in the Belarusian capital and then flew back to Jakabszállás on Monday.

The visit of the Hungarian plane was spotted by members of a Facebook group dealing with air traffic. The path of Magnus Fusion was easily recognisable because airspace in Belarus has been almost completely empty since the European Council introduced punitive measures against the country.

As is well known, on 23 May, at the behest of President Alexander Lukashenko, a Ryanair flight between Athens and Vilnius was forced to land in Minsk which in principle would have just flown over the country.

The aim of the order was to allow the Belarusian authorities to arrest opposition journalist and activist Raman Pratasevich on board.

Brussels’ response to the hijacking has essentially stopped air traffic between Europe and Belarus. Since the end of May, EU airports have not received flights from Belarusian airlines, and even Belarusian aircraft are not allowed to fly through the airspace of EU Member States.

As an EU member state, of course, Hungary cannot back out from the unusually severe airspace block. Although a Hungarian state-owned airline no longer exists, the aviation authority, in its flight safety information issued on 4 June, defined the validity of the ban much more broadly.