A mother travelling with her son and daughter has spoken of her horror as two Russian passengers managed to board her TUI flight from Mexico to Manchester illegally.
Anna-Marie Watters, 54, from Westhoughton had enjoyed an "amazing" holiday to Riviera Maya with her 18-year-old son Devon and 21-year-old daughter Taryn and was sat on the plane home, when it suddenly turned back from taxi-ing to the runway. She says the captain made an announcement that two passengers were on board illegally, with no visa or paperwork to allow them entry into the UK, and had to be removed.
She says: "People were wondering how on earth had two people got on a chartered flight without any documentation. It was very scary and it should not have been happening."
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Anna-Marie, who is a chief executive for a charity, says the two Russian passengers were located but refused to get off and a "kerfuffle" ensued. She says: "We were told to put all phones away and not to video what was happening. "
She says because of the war between Russia and Ukraine, a lot of people started thinking the worst and panicking about what was happening. She says: "People were crying, some people were getting their luggage down from over-head, it was horrendous."
Anna-Marie says the pilot came out to speak to the stricken passengers but she says they were left for two hours sat on the stationary plane at the terminal. She says it took about half an hour for the crew to get the illegal passengers off the plane.
She says an announcement was then made that a suspicious package had been located on the plane and they were investigating what it was. She says: "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 ten hour flight and her son couldn't eat for the duration. Since returning home Anna Marie says she keeps thinking about the vulnerability of the situation and feeling upset.
She says: She says: "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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