Passengers were stuck onboard a plane for several hours after two illegal Russian citizens were found aboard, leaving some "panicked" and "crying". The TUI flight was set to take off, bound for Manchester Airport, when it was suddenly diverted away from the runway and back to the terminal for the two illegal passengers to be removed.
One mum said: "People were wondering how on earth had two people got on a chartered flight without any documentation." Anna-Marie Watters, 54, was returning home from an "amazing" family getaway in Mexico when the plane captain made an announcement that two passengers were on the flight illegally, with no visa or documentation to allow them entry into the UK.
Anna-Marie said that they were "told to put all phones away and not to video what was happening". She said: "It was very scary and it should not have been happening", Lancs Live reports.
She also said that the two Russian passengers were located but refused to get off the flight. She states because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a lot of people started to think the worst and started to panic about what was happening, adding: "People were crying, some people were getting their luggage down from over-head, it was horrendous."
Anna-Marie says that the pilot came out to speak to the passengers but they were left for two hours on the stationary plane at the terminal. She said that it took about half-an-hour for the crew to get the illegal passengers off the plane.
An announcement was then made that a suspicious package had been located on the plane and they were investigating what it was. She said: "After the passengers were removed there was another announcement that a 'suspicious package' had been found on the plane and they were investigating.
"It took about fifteen minutes before they reassured us it was an 'e-cig' but in that time people were very scared and wondered why we were not being taken off the plane. It was horrendous, it was unbelievable."
Anna-Marie says they were left unnerved for the remainder of the 10-hour flight. She said: "I keep thinking about it now and crying. We should never have been put in that situation. Serious questions need to be asked to check-in and security."
A spokesperson for TUI said: "We’re aware of this incident and we take incidents of this nature extremely seriously. Our crew worked quickly to offload the passengers and their bags so the flight could depart. We’d like to apologise to all customers onboard for the inconvenience, and we’re providing additional training to our ground handling agents to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
"We have no records of the ‘suspicious package’ so we will be unable to comment on this. Please be assured, if this had happened, it would have been recorded by our crew."
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