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Comment by frisco | Hacker News Reader

That's such a weird request. What, Portugal or France were going to shoot down the Bolivian president's plane if it didn't comply? Yeah, ok.

I find it odd that this was demanded, and also odd that it then happened. Anyone have insight on either of these counts?

EDIT: Portugal

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Apparently the Bolivian presidential aircraft is a Sabreliner [0], which has a much shorter range than a big commercial jet. It may be unable to cross the Atlantic without a fuel stop near the coast. If Spain, France, and Portugal all say "don't fly here", they may not intend to shoot the thing down, but they might very well refuse to allow the aircraft to refuel when it lands.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabreliner

I believe it's a Dassault Falcon. See: http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/fab-001

Still a good point, but a Falcon has about twice the range.

Ahh, I failed to check the date on the "Falcon grounded" note at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_transports_of_heads_of_stat...

Either way, though, flying from Moscow to Bolivia is going to require a fuel stop or two, and the middle of the Atlantic is not a good place for that.

As far as I can surmise, the reason that the Bolivian president complied was due to the fact that had he not, it would at the very least, be seen as an act of aggression, and could possibly be seen as much more.

Though they wouldn't threaten to shoot the plane down per se, you can bet they'd send up a few armed and loaded fighter jets to 'escort' the president's plane either out of their air space or to a safe landing zone where he could then explain himself to the proper authorities.

s/Spain/Portugal/

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