Illegal Migration?
Airplane passenger fakes a medical emergency – the police suspect a perfidious plan
Because of an alleged medical emergency, numerous flights in Mallorca had to be stopped.
© Andreas Arnold / DPA
Due to a medical emergency, a plane has to make an emergency landing at Mallorca Airport. But the patient apparently only simulated. Other passengers use the chaos to escape from the aircraft onto the runway.
At the airport of La Palma de Mallorca, the police took 11 of 23 passengers into custody until Saturday morning, who had disembarked from a Moroccan passenger plane the previous evening and walked onto the runway. The police said that they would continue to search for the others.
The Air Arabia Maroc aircraft had made an unscheduled stopover in Mallorca because of an alleged medical emergency on board on the way from Casablanca to Istanbul. One of the passengers had complained of malaise on the flight from Morocco to Turkey. But the passenger, who was allegedly suffering from diabetes, turned out to be very healthy in the hospital.
The authorities therefore assumed that it was a planned action by a group of passengers who had intentionally brought about the emergency landing in order to come to Spain illegally. According to a report in the daily newspaper “El País”, the investigators are checking whether the emergency was staged on board.
Refugees are registered – punishment for supposedly sick people
Son Sant Juan Airport had to stop all take-offs and landings for more than three hours on Friday evening because of the people on the tarmac. Before flight operations could be resumed at around 11.30 p.m., 27 approaching aircraft had to be diverted to other airports such as Ibiza, Barcelona or Valencia, and 20 take-offs were delayed by hours. At least two flights from Germany were also affected, one of which was redirected to Valencia and the other to Ibiza, as the “Mallorca Zeitung” reported.
The migrants who got off the plane would now be treated like people who come from North Africa across the Mediterranean to Spain on small boats at risk of death, the police said. These are registered and taken to an initial reception facility. Then a procedure for repatriation to the country of origin is initiated, which can be stopped by an application for asylum or protection as a refugee.
Only the supposedly sick person would have to expect criminal proceedings on suspicion of favoring illegal entry and violation of the Aliens Act, it said. The affected Moroccan plane flew on to Turkey early Saturday morning.