Spanish police were searching Wednesday for 14 migrants, all passengers on a commercial flight, who fled after their plane made an emergency landing at Barcelona airport following a medical emergency believed to have been staged, authorities said.
In all, some 30 people attempted to “escape” from this Pegasus Airlines flight from Casablanca to Istanbul shortly after the aircraft had to make an emergency landing overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday at Barcelona’s El Prat airport.
The plane had to ask to land urgently at 04:30 (0330 GMT) because a woman on board was about to give birth and that “this passenger had supposedly lost her water,” a source from the prefecture explained. of Catalonia.
When the plane landed, an ambulance and three police patrols went to evacuate the pregnant woman, but a group of 27 people “abandoned the plane and tried to flee,” the source said. Five spontaneously returned to the plane and another nine, including the pregnant woman, were detained.
Another such incident in 2021
An examination at the hospital revealed that the latter “was not about to give birth, so she was arrested for disturbing public order,” this source added.
Police are looking for the other 14 people who managed to escape. This is the second incident of this type in Spain in just over a year.
On November 5, 2021, another plane from Casablanca to Istanbul had to make an emergency landing on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Balearic Islands when one of the passengers, apparently diabetic, had fallen ill and appeared to be in a coma. While he was being evacuated from the plane with a companion, 21 people had fled.
When he arrived at the hospital, the doctors found him in good health, but his friend had fled. Again, the police failed to arrest all of the fugitives, mostly Moroccans, and only 12 people were found.
Source: BFM TV
