He was on his way to London but his plans were thwarted by a cautious lady who informed the jet’s crew about a suspicious dark-skinned young man. He was immediately taken off the airport, as it is required by the current regulations.
The 26-year-old Armenian got to finally fly to London couple of days later – with a different carrier and from a different city.
After the events of 9/11 most airports introduced strict unbendable regulations
An anti-terrorist group got to the Lech Walesa airport instantly, they took the man away in a van, warned him that any wrong move will cause them to use force – the whole investigation took about three hours, according to what the young man said.
Everything according to rules
The anti-terrorist squad of the border guards describes the events slightly different. Capt. Andrzej Juźwiak stresses that officers only responded to the airport’s duty officer and everything was performed according to current airport regulations.
The crew reported a man on board who was supposedly talking about explosives and an air crash. They added they got such information from one of the passengers. Officers appeared immediately, they asked the suspicious guy to leave, and so he did. They informed him that if he didn’t follow their orders they would be forced to use measures of direct coercion. There was no such need since the man was cooperative and left the plane accompanied by the officers.
Then, in the presence of Internal Security Agents (ABW), he explained the whole situation from his point of view: he denied talking about any kind of threat. The witnesses confirmed his version. He was released but couldn’t take the plane anyway, because the flight was cancelled due to heavy rain that haunted 3City recently (see: Monsoon apocalypse drenches Poland).
Blacklisted for no reason
WizzAir (the carrier of the unlucky flight) stressed that the undertaken proceedings were accurate – law requires the crew to report any suspicious behaviour and any comments of that kind coming from the passengers. The officers have to further analyse each case individually (including checking the plane and the airport thoroughly) and decide what to do next: if it is a false alarm the plane is usually back on route, if not – an immediate evacuation is carried out.
The Armenian tried to fly to London on Friday again, using the same carrier. However, he was refused boarding. The crew justified their decision with pointing his name on the list of people not welcome on WizzAir’s planes. So far, WizzAir has not commented on their blacklisting the Armenian guy.
Now the man is fighting for his rights with a lawyer’s assistance. To finally get to London, he had to go to Warsaw by train first, and remember to choose a different carrier…
Nothing has yet been decided about the passenger who started the false alarm judging the man by his looks.
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