Deputy Foreign Minister unwilling to transform Ukrainian plane situation into diplomatic incident

“I’m not inclined to transform the situation with the Ukrainian plane into a diplomatic incident. It is impossible to rule out such misunderstandings of technical nature, which I hope will not happen again. We regard Ukraine as a partner, thus we don’t have a diplomatic scandal here”, Moldova’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Popov has told Info-Prim Neo. Yesterday, April 23, it was reported that a passenger airliner on the route Kiev – Chisinau landed in the Moldovan capital at a different time than scheduled, without requesting the authorization to enter the Moldovan airspace. Deputy Minister Andrei Popov ascribed it to miscommunication. “I am inclined to believe this is a singular incident and I’m attributing it to the fact that, after many years, aerial communication was finally resumed last week between Chisinau and Kiev, and this is very good news”, said Andrei Popov. He has added that it is very important to ensure the safety of flights and prevent such cases from repeating themselves, which can be done through exact coordination of flights. Contacted by Info-Prim Neo, Roman Podkorytov, the director of the International Chisinau Airport informed that the plane landed in Moldova at 3:00pm, instead 10:00pm as scheduled. “This was not a major situation, but a minor inobservance”, he said. According to him, this cannot trigger a conflict as long as it is a singular case. Also yesterday, another Ukrainian aircraft rented by a flight school made an emergency landing at the Chisinau Airport. A technical problem with the undercarriage made the aircraft touch the runway with its belly. The instructor and the trainee were not hurt.