Originally Posted by
bodory
Internal AF sources say that the airline very recently decided to avoid Iran airspace because of US sanctions. Among affected flights is AF258 and the natural updated routing is going northerly, i.e. through Russia.
But such a decision would not be a spur of the moment decision while the aircraft is in flight and would not therefore provide an explanation as to why the aircraft would have had to turn back from Belarus. A flight plan would have been submitted and the relevant authorizations sought before the flight left Paris. If they were not, that would look like something that would not amount to an ext.circ. OTOH, if they were and Russia suddenly decided to refuse entry/revoke an authorization for no clear reason, that would be more likely to be an ext. circ.