Morales, pilots, France, requests to cross airspace??

[Peacetrain]

Now I am really getting confused here.. So if someone could clear this up for me.. I would so appreciate it.. Do pilots typically call in to let a country know they are entering their airspace (would make sense) .. but if a country says that you cannot cross their airspace.. what were they going to do.. scramble jets and bring down Morales plane?

France and other countries said they did not refuse to let Morales cross..

The pilots are saying they were told they could not land?


Now something is rotten in Denmark here..this is not making a lick of sense..

[longship]

1. I agree. I am confused by what's being reported. nt

[Peacetrain]

2. glad I am not the only one

I can't sort this out for the life of me

[Trekologer]

3. You don't just hop in a plane and fly and stop for gas somewhere on the way

Especially on an international flight.

Flight plans are filed, pre-clearance is obtained, and plans are made for places to make fuel stops, as needed.

The whole story is fishy.

[Peacetrain]

4. That was what I was wondering about

wouldn't all of this stuff have been done long before their plane left.. it is just goofy.

[Fumesucker]

5. Pay close attention to the parsing of the statements

Implying one thing while actually saying something quite different is an art form in politics.

[Peacetrain]

11. Someone said something somewhere

that is for sure.. but France said they didn't and I can't think of the other country right now.. but they said they didn't ..I would give love to hear what those pilots heard.. why would they fly around in circles if someone was not telling them they could not cross that space..

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Flight plans are pre filed

And yes, when crossing international borders the air crew does contact the first tower in line. They can and do at times refuse entry in spite of the pre-clearance

[Peacetrain]

9. I have not a clue how they handle that stuff

I figured that the pilots probably had to call in that they were entering their air space.. I am still confused as to what they would have done if the plane said .. well you told us we could go before and so we are going..would they have chased them down?? someone below came up with the best solution.. they should just look at that black box.. that will settle that hash I would think

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I hop it s released as well

[Arctic Dave]

7. I would think the voice recorders would clarify

this.

Will be nice if they release them.

[Peacetrain]

8. Oh my GOD.. you are right.. did not even think of that

That would clear it up... who said what when and where..

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. At one point (not clear when), the French president intervened to say "Morales can use our airspace"

French President Francois Hollande said Wednesday he had opened his country's airspace to the Bolivian presidential jet as soon as he knew head of state Evo Morales was aboard.

"There was conflicting information about the passengers who were on board," Hollande said in Berlin. "When I knew it was the plane of the Bolivian president, I immediately gave permission for it to fly" over French territory.

http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/hollande-says-opened-airspace-when-told-morales-aboard_268937.html

Of course, presidents don't sit waiting to query the passengers on every plane requesting to fly over the country. So we know that officials had, at first, made the decision to refuse the plane entry to their airspace, and we know that decision was relayed to the plane (otherwise how could the Bolivians have been talking about it?). Their only reason for that would be the suspicion that Snowden was on board. That would only have happened if some official who could tell them what to do had told them to - air traffic controllers don't unilaterally forbid civilian jets of civilian countries, or query who is on them.

If a country does say "you can't cross our airspace" (eg for the more common reason of "our air traffic controllers are on strike&quot , then a pilot will try to get an alternative route. Would they have scrambled jets? Well, they do that when there are incidents on board airliners, so, yes, if the Bolivian pilot had ignored the ban from French airspace, and if Hollande didn't intervene after that, I expect one or more jets would indeed have been scrambled. In that situation, the pilot would have landed where the armed jet told him to. Pilots always do.

[PoliticAverse]

13. France admits permission was denied, apologizes...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23174874

Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said: "The foreign minister called his Bolivian counterpart to tell him
about France's regrets after the incident caused by the late confirmation of permission for President Morales'
plane to fly over territory."