A TAROM aircraft with 150 passengers on board traveling to Egypt has been the scene of a scandal, after a Moroccan family had been evicted from the place. The scandal started after a Moroccan woman, traveling with her husband and son, would have spitted and offended a flight attendant. The pilot decided to take the family out of the plane, but the the Moroccan couple refused to get out. In this chaos, some passengers, including children, passed out due to panic and heat.
Footage shot on board of a Tarom Bucharest-Cairo plane before the take off revealed how things had got out of hand. A family from Morocco and their son sat on the seats in the evacuation zone, without having tickets there. A flight attendant asked the family to move to their initially assigned seats, but the woman refused, and she would have become aggressive and spitted the air hostess. Then, the commander decided to evict the recalcitrant passengers.
However, some of the other passengers on board intervened, trying to stop the security agents from getting the Moroccan family out of the plane.
Other passengers called the doctors after a child had felt sick and an old woman fainted, as Digi 24 reported.
The Moroccan family has been eventually evicted from the plane and fined for public nuisance. The flight was delayed.
In retort, Tarom national carrier sent a press release, saying it regrets the incident, and explained that the cabin crew had just respected the procedures, as the safety of the passengers is a priority.
“TAROM regrets the incident on board of ROT 101 Otopeni-Cairo flight on July 17, but it is compelled to observe the international aviation procedure on the safety and security of the passengers,” says the press release.
They further explained that the emergency exits are intended to evacuate passengers from the aircraft in case of emergency in a short time.
“Therefore, the passengers taking the seats near the emergency exit must be willing to help in case on emergency and speak English (also the airline company’s language is a plus), in order to be able to understand the commands of the cabin crew in case of evacuation and the instruction of opening those doors. So, the passengers seating near the emergency exit are trained and they must be able to understand these instructions.
In the present case, the disturbing passenger did not understand nor spoke the Romanian or English languages. At the same time, she did not have the seat there and she refused to identify herself. So, for the safety of the flight and the passengers, the crew cabin acted by the procedures in force and asked the passenger to take her seat allotted to her at the gate,” Tarom press release furthe reads.
“We also mention the passenger has taken a wrong attitude and for this reason the security agents of the airport were called. We reiterate that, for Tarom, regardless of any circumstances, the essential priorities remain the safety and security of the passengers, of the flight and of the crew”, the press release concludes.
From the video it is obvious that the family were not sitting in an emergency row. It is also obvious that the aircraft had many Arabic speakers so the language barrier is not an excuse. Shame on you TAROM!
This story is complete bullshit, in the video you can see the family is not sitting anywhere near an emergency exit. This is false journalism, probably because of racism.
First of all, it’s an Egyptian family, second, how will she be able to identify herself if she didn’t speak English nor Romanian, this is just bullshit to cover this racist act.
A very silly and unprofessional press statement from Tarom airlines. A highly aggressive action by the security team.
Tarom lies, because all the passengers left the plan afterwards and took another plan later. They didn’t show that the escorted woman is was in a very critical health situation.
Instead of showing regret for the barbaric action of the Stuff and security, they are talking about safety that they have totally viloated by scaring all the families on the plan.