Pilot Faints Midflight Due To Turbulence, Forcing Emergency Landing
By Bill Galluccio
August 27, 2022
A Jet2 flight from Birmingham, England, to Antalya, Turkey, was forced to make an emergency landing in Greece after the pilot fainted. A passenger told Birmingham Live that they noticed something was wrong after experiencing turbulence.
"While we were all [seated], we noticed something was going on at the front of the plane," the unnamed passenger told the news outlet. "We thought someone had hurt themselves in the toilet while experiencing turbulence. We were told we were landing in Greece due to a medical emergency on board. We weren't told what part."
The passenger was upset because their flight was delayed by eight hours, and the airline only provided a $15 deal voucher to each passenger.
The airline confirmed the incident and said that a replacement had to be flown to the airport before the flight could resume to Turkey.
"Flight LS1239 from Birmingham to Antalya diverted to Thessaloniki Airport as a precautionary measure on Tuesday (August 23) due to one of the pilots feeling unwell. A replacement crew was flown to Thessaloniki so that we could get customers on their way to Antalya that same evening," a spokesperson for the airline said. "We communicated this to our customers as soon as possible, and our teams worked extremely hard to look after everyone. We would like to apologize to anyone affected by this unforeseen delay."
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