An easyJet flight heading to Manchester was diverted after a passenger started screaming about a “bomb”. The flight from Turkey to Manchester reportedly made an unplanned landing in Frankfurt, Germany, early on Sunday, May 25, after chaos onboard caused by an “erratic” female passenger. An eyewitness said the woman screamed about a “bomb” before “trying to get life jackets and oxygen masks out” and had to be “wrestled away” from the plane’s emergency exits.
“Once the plane had [taken] off, she began to run up and down … screaming about how it was going down and there was a bomb,” they told the Manchester Evening News. The witness also said that she told a couple that the aircraft was “going down” before ripping off an emergency door handle. “It took three males to wrestle [her] away from the exit,” they added.
“She was then taken [to] the back of the plane by cabin crew and we were alerted that the plane would be doing an emergency landing,” the easyJet passenger added.
The flight, which departed Dalaman in Turkey at midnight local time, reportedly landed in Frankfurt at around 2:30am, with emergency services seen boarding the plane shortly afterwards.
Passengers were allowed to disembark several hours later at 5am but were stuck in Germany due to an “airport curfew” until later today, finally setting off at around 12pm.
According to easyJet’s website, flight EZY2148 was diverted then delayed overnight because of a “passenger incident”.
“The disruption … is outside of our control and is considered to be an extraordinary circumstance,” a spokesperson for the budget airline said.
It is understood to have landed in Manchester at 1:40pm today.
An investigation into the incident has reportedly been launched involving authorities in Germany.
