People on a holiday plane were forced to cope with a man screaming “Allahu Akhbar, today we die” on a plane for roughly two hours on its way to Venice.
People on board were fearing for their lives as the migrant was shouting on the plane until it became evident that the man was in handcuffs being escorted off the plane.
There was no official explanation by the captain or the crew for why the man was on the plane.
Audio footage of the incident has been leaked and can be heard below:
In the 11 minute recording, the man yelled “we will die” nine times, “Allahu Akhbar” 29 times and “death is coming” 17 times.
According to passengers on board of the easyJet flight EZY5263 from Gatwick to Venice on August 23, the man was yelling these things for the entire duration of the flight.
The crew elected not to tell the passengers the situation and attempt to calm them down, but instead to order them to delete any pictures or videos taken of the man.
In addition, passengers were not allowed to use the lavatory in the rear of the plane, where the man was sitting.
“The man is thought to be a failed asylum seeker who had spent a year in a UK detention centre. He was being deported to Italy under the Dublin Regulation, which dictates that people must claim asylum in the first safe country they reach,” the Daily Mail reported.
When the plane landed, the migrant was the first person taken off the plane.
Lucy and Terence O’Sullivan, were sitting five rows in front of the man during the flight and said they were worried that there could be a terrorist attack.
“When we got on board, the seats were moving so he was obviously kicking or thrashing out. I thought someone was having a fit,” Lucy O’Sullivan told the Daily Mail. She added that when she got up she saw two men restraining the migrant.
“We didn’t know if there would be people on the plane who knew he was going to be deported that were on his side and whether they were going to mount a terrorist attack to free this person,” she said.
The couple were later told by the airline that they were not eligible for the refund.
The company did apologize for the incident and said they were reviewing the situation with the Home Office.
“We would not have carried the passenger had he displayed threatening behaviour prior to the flight, the captain would have diverted if any threat was made to the safety of the flight or passengers on board, and he was in the care of two officers escorting him on behalf of the Home Office for the duration of the flight,” a spokesman told the Daily Mail.
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