Reading headlines like "Ryanair plane barely avoids crash", I can understand why the company's
PR and legal depts are in full panic mode. Getting press like this is surely damaging their reputation (or what little is left thereof). They need to do damage control, but putting pressure on the messenger is always a bad move.
From my experience as a journalist, it's quiet common for corporations to have their legal depts bully smaller news outlets or blogs into obedience (bark at the big dogs for a change, you cowards). On a side note, a true
PR professional would never allow something like this to happen. This will fire back at you -- it always does.
I'm not an expert in aviation, but the incident as described by BFU sounds pretty serious. So instead of bullying the media, Ryanair should investigate what internal procedures lead to a crew trying to make up for lost time by an impromptu change of plans that nearly went south.