A Turkish low-cost carrier was forced to make an emergency landing after cries for help were heard from the front cargo hold. The incident happened on Saturday on Pegasus flight 690, which was travelling from Istanbul to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. The Pegasus Airlines flight was in the air for around an hour before diverting to Antalya, a coastal city in Turkey.
When cries shouting "help me," were reportedly heard, the pilots became concerned that a baggage handler might be trapped in the potentially dangerous environment of the unheated and low-oxygen cargo hold. They immediately decided to land the plane at Antalya International Airport on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
George, an influencer on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, was on board the flight. George, who has over 425K followers on X, wrote on a post that the cabin crew were in the middle of food service when news of the disturbance came through.
people with the scran had just come to my seat and then the woman goes ‘we are making a emergency stop as the pilot can hear noises from below in the luggage hold and he believes its a person…’
— george (@StokeyyG2) January 27, 2024
Because of the stress caused by the situation, a worried passenger was reportedly asked to lie down on the flight.
As soon as the flight landed in Antalya, the ground crew rushed to the aircraft to open the luggage hold and unload each and every piece of baggage while passengers remained on board. However, a person was not found in the hold despite the crew's suspicions and an announcement was then made to the cabin that they would continue their journey in due course.
They checked every single bag…
— george (@StokeyyG2) January 27, 2024
For nothing at all to be in there… pic.twitter.com/QuG3WPWGqb
The flight departed Istanbul at around 10 PM on Saturday on what was supposed to be a three-and-a-half-hour flight.
"The cabin crew has just checked the luggage area and there was apparently nothing. Twenty minutes before that, we were told that the pilot could hear bangs from below in the luggage hold and they supposedly thought it was a human, a worker that had been trapped inside.
"It didn't help when a flight attendant mentioned that it's very cold down there and not much oxygen," George, whose handle on X is StokeyyG, told Daily Star.
The Turkish low-budget airline, Pegasus, is based out of various Turkish airports but offers routes to the UK from London Stansted, Birmingham and Manchester.
There have been quite a few safety issues reported in recent times in the airline industry. Earlier this month, an American Airlines flight was diverted to Houston, Texas, due to a fire on board.
A Singapore Airlines flight, heading to Manchester, was forced to make an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport due to a fuel crisis last week.
