Air Hijacking

Available for over a year

After a plane carrying a Belarussian dissident was recently hijacked Jonathan Freedland examines a similar incident 50 years ago when a British plane was forced to land in Libya. Victor Mallet was an 11 year old boy flying to the Sudanese capital Khartoum to join his parents when the BOAC plane he was travelling on was forcibly landed by Libyan authorities in July 1971. Sudanese dissidents involved in a recently successful coup were ordered off the plane by Colonel Gaddafi's forces and were later executed. The incident caused outrage in Parliament since international air regulations had been violated putting a passenger plane in danger. The story bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the Ryan Air plane forced to land in Belarus and where the dissident journalist Roman Protasevich was seized by the authorities. Victor along with the leader of the Belarussian Opposition, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, journalist Sarah Hurst and Aviation Expert David Learmount join Jonathan to explore the Long View of state sponsored air hijacking. Producer Neil McCarthy