The captain onboard a commercial flight has been accused of abandoning passengers when a fire was detected on the aircraft.
The incident happened aboard Vueling flight 8754 on Thursday, 21 July, which was waiting to depart Barcelona for Birmingham shortly before midday.
One shocked passenger also claimed that all but one flight attendant “ran off after him” following the apparent fire alert, and described the crew as doing “a full Costa Concordia”, referring to the deadly sinking of an Italian cruise ship in 2005, whose captain was accused of leaving the vessel prematurely.
Passenger Andrew Benion told The Sun that the mostly British collection of passengers were “just belting up” after boarding when the plane appeared to malfunction.
“Suddenly there was this huge bang and smell of burning smoke coming from the back of the plane,” he alleged.
“All the lights went off and the emergency lights came on - it was terrifying.
“Next thing the stewards start go into meltdown, running up and down aisle - first, telling everyone to keep belts on, then to tell everyone to take their belts off.
“One ran into the cockpit to tell the captain. Then as soon as a stewardess opened the front door the captain ran straight off. He was just gone. He was first off the plane,” claimed Mr Benion.
“He did a full Costa Concordia.
“You’ve never seen anything like it. If we weren’t all so frightened it would have been complete comedy.”
Mr Benion continued: “His door opened, then the side door opened and bang - he was just gone.
“Then all his crew ran off after him and left us all.
“There was only one stewardess left on the plane and you could see the fear on her face.
“She started screaming for everyone to get off.
“The Spanish person next to us translated and said, ‘The plane is on fire’.
“We couldn’t believe the captain just left us like that - he was running off to safety and we were all sat there like lemmings.”
Fellow passenger Andrew, who did not provide his last name, said that passengers were shaken up after being evacuated and seeing emergency services arrive.
He added that they were eventually allowed to reboard the same plane and departed three hours later than scheduled, but said “no one wanted” to get back on the aircraft.
“Obviously, we were totally panicked. We were getting off the plane and all the fire engines and ambulances were turning up,” Andrew told The Sun.
“They took us into a glass reception area and all the doors were locked - then we were surrounded by police.
“They were acting as if there was a terrorist attack.”
He said communication from the airline team was minimal during the stressful incident.
“We could see them spraying the back of the plane but all the staff refused to talk to us.
“They left us in there for an hour, then took us to another plane and left us on there for 90 more minutes while it was refuelled.
“A different captain then turned up on the plane and apologised but refused to go into detail.
“He just said, ‘We apologise for the inconvenience - we’re going to get you back to Birmingham as soon as possible’.”
The passengers eventually took off, but “the atmosphere on the plane was shockingly bad - no refreshments of drinks or anything,” said Andrew.
“And of course no one wanted to be on this plane - we were all terrified.
“It makes you think if that had happened when we were taking off it could have been catastrophic.”
A spokesperson for Vueling said: “On 21 July 2022, a small external fire was detected on flight VY8754 scheduled to depart from Barcelona to Birmingham at 11.55. The security protocols were initiated immediately and all passengers and crew were quickly disembarked from the aircraft and moved onto an alternative aircraft following a passport control check.
“The flight subsequently took off from Barcelona at 15.07. All passengers and crew were unharmed. Our captain remained at the cabin controlling the situation and our First Officer went outside to check the incident with airport managers and different airport people that were helping and following protocols.”
