The Guardia Civil arrested a man, a passenger on an Iberia Express flight on the Ibiza-Madrid route, this midday after he became very nervous on board and activated the evacuation ramp.
The traveler, according to eyewitnesses, became nervous when he learned that the plane would leave es Codolar late. The flight was scheduled to take off at 13.30 hoursbut the departure was delayed by half an hour for unknown reasons.
As the aircraft continued to idle on the runway with the engine off and no air conditioning, it began to get very hot inside. “People started to get very nervous in general,” recounted another passenger who prefers not to give his name.
Although it was after a while, when the aircraft was already taking the runway to take off, that the man got up and started shouting that he wanted to “disembark” and that he “couldn’t stand it like that.”. Faced with the crew’s refusal, he exclaimed that what they were committing was “a full-fledged hijacking”.
Pilot’s order
“When he found out what was going on the pilot came back to where we were and said to let him off,” continued this passenger who witnessed the events. “We thought he would get off -there the Civil Guard was waiting for him- and then we would take off, but it wasn’t like that.”he lamented.
The airline workers had alerted the agents, who arrested the man, who pushed the button that activates the slide of the emergencies, deploying it.
“Then the pilot told us that the plane was stuck and could not leave,” continued the witness, who was making a stopover in Madrid and then flying to Alicante.
Disembarkation of all passengers
After the incident, all passengers had to leave the aircraft and go to the Iberia Express counter to be rebooked on another flight. “At the moment, it has been very complicated for all of us, there are people who have missed connections to other flights, there is a passenger for example who was traveling to Bogota and another to South Africa,” he added.
In their case, today they are going to have to sleep in the capital in a hotel that they still don’t know if they will be paid by the airline or if they will have to pay for it out of their own pocket. “The company, however, has been very good, they gave us a voucher to eat at the airport and a sheet with all our rights to claim,” he explained. He also thanked the good treatment given to passengers with reduced mobility.
On the other hand, those affected do not know if they will receive compensation for the missed flight due to the incident. “It looks like I’m going to Helsinki and I’m going to Alicante, which you can almost see from Sant Antoni “joked this traveler.
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