[throwaway21_]

Passengers were in danger in a same way passengers are in danger over New York if pilot refuses ATC directions.

Yeah, Morales's pilot could choose a different path provided there's air refueling available. Otherwise it had to land somewhere, and then airplane was searched. I'm pretty sure there are conventions that forbid that kind behavior against diplomatic personal.

So, in the end, we are again at the same place - when we ignore conventions that's perfectly fine, and when they do the same it's a completely different.

btw read first article of Chicago convention, then check what sovereignty means.

[emn13]

According to Morales, no Viennese authorities boarded to plane, and in any case it's a bit of a moot point - after all Morales may well have cooperated well beyond what was required; after all, he had no reason to prevent transparency here, and indeed it's a PR win for his anti-imperialist cause if he can demonstrate the US and its allies are essentially bullies.

Assuming he intended to fly to the azores to refuel, he should have had enough fuel to fly back to Moscow too. The austrian air traffic control did not induce him to land; he chose to do so when portugal refused refueling rights and a small number of countries did not immediate grant permission to fly over their territory (but according to France, once it became clear it was Morales's plane they did, so... somebody is being economical with the truth there).

In any case, even without air refueling it would have been extremely unlikely that the 900EX only had enough fuel for the around 3000km to Vienna as opposed to the 8000km it could carry when the overall trip is around 15000km. Almost certainly Morales had his pick of airports to land at, including Moscow, Basel, perhaps Turkey or Egypt or who knows where.

There is clear evidence Morales' plane could not follow its original flight plan nor fly without any refueling all the way to La Paz; but there is no evidence he couldn't have chosen to avoid landing in the EU if he had wanted to. But... he didn't want to avoid that; he wanted to make the point that the US is imperialist.

And that's fine! I don't begrudge him that. But it's just an entirely different story to the Belarusian abduction of a journalist by temporarily kidnapping an entire civilian plane. Those aren't at all the same, and claims in this discussion thread to the contrary seem like strained attempts at whataboutism; presenting the US government as not just having its own flaws, but having equivalent flaws to Belarusian dictatorships' flaws. At that point, it seems like people are living in some kind of alternate reality they've imagined to suit their predetermined world view.