(Madrid) Palma de Mallorca airport, one of Spain’s busiest in the Balearic archipelago, had to close for nearly four hours on Friday after several passengers on an emergency landing plane left in running on the tarmac, according to airport authorities.
The plane, which was on a flight between Morocco and Turkey, was diverted to Palma de Mallorca, where it made an emergency landing due to the supposed discomfort of a passenger, the Civil Guard told the AFP.
During the evacuation of the supposedly ill traveler, around 20 passengers took the opportunity to run away from the plane on the tarmac. Two people were arrested, the civil guard said.
According to the daily El Pais, investigators are working on the hypothesis of a set-up in order to enter Spain illegally.
The passenger who had complained of discomfort was taken to hospital, where he was declared in perfect health and arrested by the police for “helping with illegal immigration and breaking the law on foreigners”, according to the newspaper.
One of the passengers who had accompanied him to the hospital also disappeared in the wild, specifies El Pais, which reports five arrests in addition to that of the simulator.
According to the FlightRadar24 application, the baffled aircraft was an Airbus A320 from Air Arabia Maroc, which was on a flight between Casablanca and Istanbul.
As a result of the incident, 13 planes bound for Palma were diverted to other airports, and 16 departing flights suffered significant delays, according to airport authorities. The airport reopened around midnight Friday evening after about four hours of closure.