A British grandma was held in Spanish immigration for five days because her passport had dropped out of her hand luggage on a Ryanair flight.
Tracy McKellar was taking her fortnightly visit from the UK to her property in La Coronada, in the Extremadura province of western Spain on May 20 when the mishap occurred.
The 53-year-old, from the Wirral, Merseyside, was not allowed a phone, any belongings or a change of clothes the whole time she was detained in Madrid.
When the live-in carer realised what had happened, she told staff at customer services who then handed her over to border control officers.
Tracy was interviewed and then led to a windowless room where she waited for days.
She was told she couldn't leave until the next flight to Liverpool - but that there wasn't one for almost a week.
She said her nightmare could "happen to anyone".
Tracy told the Daily Mail: "I ran to customer services to ask them to search the plane, but they were in no hurry to look. I was worried that the plane would take off with my passport, but they didn't seem to care."
She said she spent five hours trying to get her passport before being led to an immigration room.
She had time to message her daughter to explain what had happened before her phone was taken.
Ryanair said staff searched for her passport on the plane, but it couldn't be found.
Tracy said border control said as she is no longer an EU citizen "they could only help me so much".
She said they told her they could give her documentation to return to the UK but she would have to fly back with Ryanair to the same airport.
And that the next flight wasn't for five days.
Tracy said: "I begged them to let me fly to any airport at all, but they wouldn't let me. I was given a social worker who phoned the British consulate, but they said they couldn't do anything because 'it was the weekend'. I was stunned."
She was forced to wait in a windowless room with 30 others - passing the time trying to teach English to some of them.
She washed her one set of clothes every night and hung them out to dry the next day.
"It was very distressing at first but I knew there was nothing I could do, so I remained as calm as possible. But you could see how other people were really upset," Tracy explained.
At one point a young man who gave her the "creeps" put his face near hers as she lay on her bunk and said "Ola! Are you sleeping well!"
She said she swore at him and told the social worker to keep him away.
The TV was broken and Tracy was given a book to read - about a woman in prison.
Tracy still hasn't had her passport back and once she was allowed to out of the immigration room, the accompanying police had to ask the pilot for permission to fly her home in a "humiliating" exchange.
When she finally got back home, she lay on her daughter's lawn and slept for two hours.
A Ryanair spokesperson told the Mirror: "The crew on this flight from Liverpool to Madrid (20 May) searched the aircraft for this passenger's lost passport, but it was not there.
"Any passenger travelling to Spain from a country outside the Schengen area must go through Passport Control, which is managed by the local authorities.
"While we regret this passenger's circumstance, it is beyond our control and is now a matter for the local Spanish authorities."
