Spanish police are looking for 14 passengers who fled after their plane made an emergency landing at Barcelona airport on Wednesday following a medical incident that appears to have been staged, authorities said.
The passengers are part of a group of 28 people who escaped from a Pegasus Airlines flight from Casablanca to Istanbul after it made an emergency landing at El Prat Airport in Barcelona.
It was the second such incident in just over a year, involving a flight from Morocco to Turkey in which a passenger feigned a medical condition to force an emergency landing in Spain with dozens of people fleeing the plane.
According to a source from the delegation of the central government in Catalonia, the incident started at 04:30 (0330 GMT) when the plane requested an emergency landing because “a female passenger’s waters are said to have ruptured”.
When it landed, the plane was met by an ambulance and three police patrols, but “when the pregnant woman disembarked, a group of 28 people left the plane and tried to escape,” said the source.
Police managed to detain 14 of them, including the pregnant woman, but five were returned to the plane at their request after being accepted by airline staff.
“The woman was taken to the hospital of Sant Joan de Deu for a”check“who found no signs of giving birth, for which reason she was fired and arrested for disturbing the public order”, said the source.
Police are looking for the 14 elements that managed to escape, while authorities are investigating the other eight would-be migrants to secure their repatriation flight to Morocco.
On November 5, 2021, another plane from Casablanca to Istanbul had to make an emergency landing in Mallorca after one of the passengers was found to be ill. After the passenger was escorted off the plane, another 21 people fled.
The passenger, who appeared to be slipping into a diabetic coma, was taken to hospital but was deemed to be in good health and arrested, while his companion fled.
In all, police arrested 12 people, including a passenger who caused a commotion on the plane, while another 12 managed to escape, sparking a manhunt. All but one were Moroccans.
Source: DN
