Nervous passenger thrown off aircraft for suspected swine flu
A Scottish woman who threw up into her sick bag as she waited for her plane to take off was asked to disembark because the crew feared she might have swine flu. 36-year-old Margaret Crawford said that she was a nervous flyer and as such had been sick once into her sick bag. The air hostess panicked when she saw that Ms. Crawford had been ill. Despite protestations she was ordered to get off the plane by the pilot.
Ms. Crawford then had to travel to Cancun Hospital for tests to see if she had the disease before being allowed to fly back home from her holiday in Mexico on a later flight. Ms. Crawford had suffered a mini stroke earlier in the year and as such has to use crutches and a wheel-chair most of the time. She said that being treated in such a way in a foreign country with no assistance left her terrified. She says that she had to spend £400 on her fitness to fly test, additional taxi fees and a hotel room for an extra night.
Ms. Crawford says that the whole experience has put her off travelling and said that a real low point was having to shell out an extra $10 to a bell-hop at her hotel just to get a bottle of water.
Thomas Cook has apologised for Ms. Crawford’s treatment and says that they had not been made aware of her disability.