Precedents of forced plane landing?

Question

Recently, Belarus is being accused for forcing a passenger liner to land, for arresting one of its passengers.

Were there any such precedents before?

@EkadhSingh That was actually migrated from Politics.SE, funnily enough. — F1Krazy, May 25 '21 at 13:49
But is it a historical question? For example, question https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/46535/ is here, not on History stackexchange. — user2501323, May 25 '21 at 13:54
@user2501323 good point, I’ll vtc the question you linked. — Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica, May 25 '21 at 14:03
I see. But is it? How do you divide history from politics in this case? Isn't this a question about political context? — user2501323, May 25 '21 at 14:12
I've closed it as a dupe because it's essentially the same as the dupe target. I don't think it makes sense to have the same question here when the same question was here and it's now on History.SE. — JJJ, May 25 '21 at 14:19

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 25 '21 at 14:03

The answer is complicated:

There are several reasons a given civilian aircraft may be intercepted by military aircraft, establishing precedent for an existing legal and moral authority for such planes to be ordered to land - and if they fail to comply, to be shot down.

The most common justification is violation of territorial airspace as is the case in the 1955 shoot down of El Al Flight 402 over Bulgaria, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 in 1973 over Israel, and Korean Air Lines Flight 902 over the Soviet Union in 1978. The United States scrambled F-15s with shootdown orders against American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 93 during the 9-11 attacks, as well though neither plane was successfully intercepted.

As pertains to interception for the purposes of seizing a person, the Hague Hijacking Convention of 1970 establishes that civil air traffic is basically the equivalent of high seas shipping, and unlawful interception thereof is basically piracy.

That convention, however, explicitly does not apply to actions taking place aboard military or police aircraft, so it's unlikely that it applies here since the actions that brought the plane to heel were not carried out aboard that plane. This leaves the act as a state exercising its sovereign authority, something which is extensively established as legitimate in International Relations.

This has been done before by a few countries, including Iran in 2010 to arrest two Sunni militants; Turkey in 2012 to seize contraband cargo; and the United States (indirectly, via Austria) in 2013 in an attempt to recapture Edward Snowden.

In each of these cases, the acts touched off a diplomatic incident similar to what's going on with the Belarus case.

Precedents of forced plane landing?

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