Though the US says that any flight carrying Snowden should not be allowed to pass, they are hardly able to do anything, aviation expert Chris Yates told RT, adding that it is unlikely that the whistleblower is now on the flight from Moscow to Havana.
RT:First, no one has seen Snowden on this plane. Is it possible to secretly get someone aboard and hide them on a passenger jet?
Chris Yates: Well, quite frankly probably not. We’ve got
that plane stuffed with journalists and other people who
obviously attempted to keep an eye out for Mr. Snowden. It’s
unlikely that he will be on that plane, in fact nobody has
actually seen him. The fact of the matter is that he still might
be in that transit lounge, he may be held for some reason in that
transit lounge because of the media scrum. Whatever the case
might be it certainly appears that he is not actually on the
flight at the moment.
RT: If he is on this plane, is there a legal way to intercept it?
CY: Yesterday the American government put out a warning to
all nations in the Western hemisphere not to let Mr. Snowden pass
through except en route to the US. It could mean that any plane
he is travelling on other nations might prevent from entering
their airspace, because they don’t want to be caught up in this
particular spat. It is unlikely that would happen.
The bottom line in the aviation world is that if the flight is
operating legally, it filed all the proper flight forms and done
the rest of appropriate measures then that plane should be given
free access straight cross any bit of airspace it is flying
through. Could the US intercept the aircraft if it were to enter
US airspace? Possibly they could instruct it to land somewhere in
the US, but I would think that would be unlikely. Of course the
pilot himself has the possibility to divert so he does not
actually need to enter US airspace to actually fly down to
Havana. And that will be another possibility as well.
RT:Who makes the decision to divert? Who does the pilot respond to: a legal authority or his corporate superiors?
CY: Once the plane takes off it’s entirely down to the pilot to choose the best route depending upon all of the prevailing conditions at the time and that could be weather and a whole other variety of things as well. So if the pilot were to choose to fly the route just outside of US airspace close to it then he would be entitled to do that of his own volition provided that it didn’t have any impact upon the safety of the flight and everybody else on board it.
RT:This is an Airbus 330 - does it have enough fuel to divert?
CY: Yes is the short answer to that question. All flights
operating all over the world are required to carry enough fuel in
case of diversion whatever that diversion might be. The bottom
line is that – yes, the airplane will be carrying enough fuel.
Now the US says that any flight carrying Mr. Snowden should not
be allowed to pass, but on the other hand they are powerless to
do anything provided that the airplane does not enter US
airspace.
RT:Reports say Snowden's passport was revoked by the
US If so, how can he move around the world?
CY: I’ve had personal experience of losing a passport, for
example, and there are methods and mechanisms in place for people
to be able to travel back to their home country without a
passport. That is a legal document which is usually produced by
some official authority, the police for example, in my case it
issued a document that let we travel across Europe to get back to
the UK. The fact that the US government revoked his passport does
not necessarily mean that he cannot get on a flight which is
pre-booked, and particularly if he is the transit lounge of an
airport because effectively he is in no man’s land. If he used a
legal passport it would seem to me at his point of departure and
while he is in transit then it would seem that it doesn’t really
matter whether he has got that passport in his hand and it’s
actually a legal document at that time.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.