Two Russian passengers managed to board a TUI flight illegally before crew acted to get them off the plane. The travel company has promised extra training to ensure the incident isn't repeated.
Anna-Marie Watters, 54, who was travelling with her son, Devon, 18, and daughter Taryn, 21, on the flight from Mexico to Manchester described how events unfolded.
She said her family had enjoyed an "amazing" holiday and were sat on the plane home, when it suddenly turned back from taxiing to the runway.
Read more: TUI staff 'cry' as passengers told 'make your own way home'
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, said Anna-Marie.
"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."
She said the two Russian passengers at first refused to get off and a "kerfuffle" ensued. "We were told to put all phones away and not to video what was happening."
Anna-Marie said some passengers began fearing the worst because of the war between Russia and Ukraine and began to panic. "People were crying, some people were getting their luggage down from overhead, it was horrendous."
It took about half an hour for the crew to get the illegal passengers off the plane according to Anna-Marie. She said the pilot came out to speak to the passengers but they were left for two hours sitting on the stationary plane at the terminal.
However their ordeal continued. "After the passengers were removed there was another announcement that a 'suspicious package' had been found on the plane and they were investigating," said Anna-Marie, a chief executive of a charity.
"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."
Now safely home in Westhoughton, Anna-Marie 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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