Polish paraglider pilot held in Belarusian jail for week for overflying state border accidentally

A paraglider pilot accidentally overflew the Belarusian border and landed in Belarus. He paid a fine, but it remains unknown when he will be released.

A member of a paragliding club in Poland's Podlaskie Voivodeship flew from Bialystok a week again, planning to establish the record of nonstop flying. He accidentally overflew the Belarusian border and got detained, Tvoy Stil website reports with a link to Gazeta Wyborcza.

The pilot was not injured. He doesn't complain about ill-treatment. He met with the Polish consul in Hrodna and paid a fine of about 8 million rubles. But he is still held in a Belarusian jail.

He was allowed to use a mobile phone to call his family. It is not ruled out that the “trespasser” can be deported to Poland by the end of the week. A possible reason for the delay is difficulties with documents.

The Polish pilot seems to get off lightly, taking into account the incident in 1995, when Belarusian border guards shot down a gas balloon with American sportsmen.

Increased attention to the pilot may be explained with the “teddy bear assault”. A Swedish light plane dropped teddy bears with pro-democracy labels on the morning of July 4, 2012. The Belarusian Ministry of Defence said the country's airspace was not violated and called the video on the internet a fake. Lukashenka later admitted the fact of the “teddy bear airdrop” and dismissed a number of high-ranking officials from the Air Defence Forces and the Border Committee. Two Belarusians spent almost a month in the KGB jail on suspicion of being involved in the stunt.