[Scoundreller]

From what I’m reading, nobody ordered a plane out of the sky, but several countries (suddenly) excluded a plane from their sky.

Of course, if you’re flying over a landlocked country, and every neighbour blocks you from their airspace, you don’t have many options. (Not that this quite happened, but looked to be going in that trajectory).

[joshuaissac]

> nobody ordered a plane out of the sky, but several countries (suddenly) excluded a plane from their sky

Suddenly withdrawing permission for a plane to fly through your sky, after it has already taken off and does not have enough fuel to take an alternative route, has the same effect as ordering it out of the sky.

[oskarkk]

Not exactly - in the Belarus case the plane was in the Belarusian airspace and had to land in Belarus (and then two passengers were arrested). If Belarus had revoked permission before the plane entered its airspace, and it had to land in Ukraine or Poland due to insufficient fuel, nothing would have happened to those passengers.

[Scoundreller]

Who said they didn’t have enough fuel for an alternative route? Their intended destination was Bolivia from Moscow. Can’t do that without a refuel ~midway. The next day they did a refuel in Canary Islands (Spain).