A father has vowed never to set foot on a plane again after a terrifying incident on a Ryanair flight that was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after departing from Manchester Airport.
On the March 16, 41-year-old Ashton Small experienced every flyer's nightmare aboard flight RK 1266 to Agadir, Morocco. The flight, which took off around 4pm, was in the air for just over an hour when the pilot announced they had to return to Manchester.
Ashton said the ordeal upon landing, when the plane was met by fire engines, left him "too traumatised" to consider flying ever again. "I have trauma from being on that flight," he said, reports the Liverpool Echo.
"We had been in the air for no more than one hour and 30 minutes, the plane just kept turning left then right, left, right, I had started to panic. I was panicking more because I wasn't sitting next to my partner or friend either.
"The captain then told us we were going to have to land back at Manchester airport. You hear about planes crashing, I thought I was having a near-death experience.
"We landed back at Manchester and there was loads of fire engines on the runway - the landing was horrible, I grabbed my seat so tightly - I just wanted to get off. It scared me seeing the fire engines.
"When we were landing I turned airplane mode off on my phone and rang my mum and dad straight away. I phoned them and said 'If anything happens, I love you both'. I told my partner I just wanted to go home."
Following the scare, passengers were transferred to another Ryanair flight, which Ashton boarded, but he's now sworn off flying, insisting he'll stick to 'driving holidays' from now on.
"The pilot or Ryanair didn't even say sorry to us for the inconvenience. It has put me off going on holiday anymore, it was a terrible experience. I thought I was going to die. I have a little boy who is four and the only holiday I will be going on now is driving trips. I don't trust planes now, I can't, not after that.
"You never know what is going to happen. When I got home to my mum and dad they both hugged me and said they don't want me going on any other planes. I'm a 41-year-old man, but when I phoned them they said they genuinely thought something was going to happen."
A Ryanair spokesperson said: "This flight from Manchester to Agadir (Sun, 16 Mar) returned to Manchester shortly after take-off due to a minor technical issue. The aircraft landed normally at Manchester Airport and passengers disembarked.
"To minimise disruption to affected passengers, we quickly arranged for a replacement aircraft to operate this flight, which departed to Agadir at 19:05 local that same day. We sincerely apologise to affected passengers for any inconvenience caused."
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