Nearly 30 migrants flee plane at Barcelona airport after female passenger sparks emergency landing by pretending she was going into labour during flight from Morocco
- Twenty-seven passengers fled a plane at Barcelona’s El Prat airport this morning
- Woman pretended she was in labour so plane would make emergency landing
- The plane had been en route from the Moroccan city of Casablanca to Istanbul
Nearly 30 migrants fled a plane at Barcelona’s El Prat airport after a woman on board forced it to make an emergency landing by pretending she was going into labour.
The drama occurred around 4.30am this morning after the aircraft made its unscheduled stop en route from the Moroccan city of Casablanca to Istanbul in Turkey.
As flight attendants helped the woman. who claimed her waters had broken, disembark, a group of 28 migrants fled the plane and ran onto the runway.
At the last count 14 had been located and arrested including the unnamed woman after a doctor examined her and found no evidence she was pregnant.
Nearly 30 migrants fled a plane at Barcelona’s El Prat airport after a woman on board forced it to make an emergency landing by pretending she was going into labour. Pictured: File image of a plane landing at El Prat international airport in Barcelona, Spain
Eight of them reportedly agreed to return to the plane voluntarily and police are scrambling to find the other 14 migrants who fled.
The company operating Flight PC652, which had 228 passengers onboard, has been identified as Pegasus Airlines.
Sources at the central government’s delegation in Catalonia confirmed the mass attempt to flee the plane had occurred after a woman on board falsely claimed she was going into labour.
They said the 13 people intercepted near the plane had been stopped on the runway by police and Civil Guard officers.
The eight passengers who did not agree to be returned to the aircraft are now facing expulsion from Spain.
Police could not be reached on Wednesday for an official comment.
The incident represents a repeat of one last November when more than 20 passengers fled a plane from Casablanca to Istanbul after it made an emergency landing at Palma Airport in Majorca after a Moroccan on board faked a diabetic coma.
Twenty-one of the 25 passengers who fled a plane at Palma Airport last November ended up being arrested and accused of crimes including sedition and are yet to be tried.
The incident represents a repeat of one last November when more than 20 passengers fled a plane from Casablanca to Istanbul after it made an emergency landing at Palma Airport in Majorca after a Moroccan on board faked a diabetic coma (pictured: members of the civil guard on the runway where that escape took place)
The other four people who escaped have been identified but are yet to be found.
Extraordinary footage of the November 5 incident, being billed as a ‘first’ in aviation history, showed the passengers fleeing the plane and sprinting across the runway as paramedics took a ‘sick’ patient to hospital with a companion who vanished when they arrived at the medical centre.
Reports in Spain at the time said officials were probing a members-only Facebook group called Brooklyn created by young Moroccans that published a post in July last year outlining a plan similar to Friday’s incident.
The post reportedly said: ‘Lads, listen, the majority of you want to emigrate. Follow this plan. We need 40 volunteers.
‘All Brooklyn guys should book a ticket on a plane to Turkey that flies over Spain.’
It also contained references to someone feigning illness and causing the plane to make an emergency landing so passengers on board could flee the aircraft.
A member of the group told Spanish media the person who published the post had intended it as a joke.
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