What’s the saying? ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me?’
One day after an Aeroflot plane flying from Miami to Moscow violated Canada’s ban on Russian aircraft in its airspace -after it had been announced that same day - it happened again.
The ban on any Russia-owned, chartered or operated aircraft in Canadian airspace went into effect on Sunday 27FEB.
After Aeroflot Flight 111 violated that prohibition later that day, Transport Canada said it had been aware of the violation - and that it was launching a review of Aeroflot and Nav Canada.
"We will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action and other measures to prevent future violations," the Canadian regulator said.
Nav Canada confirmed to media that Aeroflot Flight 111 did enter Canadian airspace Sunday, and said the flight declared itself a “humanitarian flight.” The air-traffic control service is not a government agency and doesn’t have the authority to deny airspace access to “humanitarian” flights.
According to reports, following the first incident Sunday, “NAV CANADA along with regulator Transport Canada … issued a directive to all air traffic control units to deny all identifiable Russian airplanes access to their airspace. The only exception to this ban is a prior approval by Transport Canada.”
However, Russian operators apparently didn’t get the message. 28FEB, Reuters reports that “Canada ordered two Russian flights out of its airspace on Monday after the aircraft… identified themselves as "humanitarian" flights.”
If these kinds of shenanigans continue, in future, the report says that air traffic controllers “will direct the offending airplane to the closest airport and notify the regulator, to be immediately reported to Canada's Air Defense Sector” and Transport Canada.
