Air Serbia Flight to Moscow Turns Back 90 Minutes After Takeoff; Serbian Media Say Ex-Deputy PM Vulin Was the Passenger Who Skipped Screening, Which He Denies
Air Serbia flight JU134 left Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport for Moscow Sheremetyevo on the evening of November 3, but turned around over Lithuania about 90 minutes after takeoff and landed back in Belgrade at 9:57 p.m. Air Serbia confirmed the return was ordered after airport authorities sent information requiring additional security checks on one passenger. About 150 passengers were aboard, most of them Russian nationals.
According to Serbian broadcaster N1 and the Nova portal, airport officials reviewing surveillance footage after departure concluded that Aleksandar Vulin, a former deputy prime minister and former director of the Security Intelligence Agency, had allegedly boarded without the mandatory screening, helped by an unidentified person; the airport's security director, Milan Kuc, then ordered the aircraft back. Also aboard were Serbian People's Party leader Nenad Popovic and Dusan Bajatovic, director of the state gas company Srbijagas, all close associates of former president Aleksandar Vucic. Vulin has been under U.S. sanctions since 2023.
After landing, all passengers and baggage were re-screened under a protocol similar to a bomb-threat response, a process that took hours. Air Serbia said screening is the airport security services' responsibility, not the airline's, and did not name the passenger concerned. Belgrade's judicial authorities have begun examining how a passenger could board without completing all screening steps, and whether any offence was committed.
Vulin firmly denied bypassing security, calling the episode a political settling of scores, and said the checks after landing found nothing illegal. He told N1 he was travelling to Moscow to discuss extending the gas agreement between Russia and Serbia. The flight departed again at 1:56 a.m. and reached Moscow at 6:43 a.m., roughly seven hours late.
(Source: N1)
Source: 塞尔维亚N1电视台
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：塞尔维亚航空一架空客A320（注册号 YU-APG）在伦敦希思罗机场滑行（资料图，与涉事航班同型机、非涉事飞机本身）。照片：John Taggart，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: An Air Serbia Airbus A320 (YU-APG) at London Heathrow (file photo; same aircraft type as the flight involved, not the aircraft itself). Photo: John Taggart, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
