- Were you on the flight? If so, email rory.tingle@mailonline.co.uk
Boris Johnson’s father Stanley has criticised authorities for not letting him off a diverted plane when it landed at Heathrow, causing the entire flight to be cancelled.
The writer, 83, was on board BA2641 from Malaga to London Gatwick on Friday when the plane was diverted to Heathrow due to a temporary runway closure.
The Airbus A321 was due to refuel before the short flight to Gatwick when the runway reopened, but Mr Johnson and two other passengers wanted to get off.
This reportedly resulted in the plane missing its departure time and being cancelled, with all passengers having to disembark and take a connecting bus to Gatwick.
Mr Johnson has vigorously defended his actions, insisting the pilot invited passengers to disembark at Heathrow before the “airport authorities” decided “this could not happen”.
He also maintained that he helped a woman who was “terrified” to get back on a plane after her husband died in a plane crash.
The flight from Malaga was one of 16 that had to be diverted after another British Airways plane was unable to take off from Gatwick, causing the runway to be closed for 50 minutes.
Passengers told The Independent that Mr Johnson, who splits his time between London and Somerset, was one of three passengers who tried to get off the plane after it landed at Heathrow.
According to Annemarie, this led to an argument, in which the former MEP and the other passengers ‘got very angry… hence the police’, after which the flight was eventually cancelled.
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But Johnson has since written an opinion piece for The Independent defending himself against criticism and stressing that he did the right thing.
He wrote: ‘When we landed at Heathrow the Captain informed us that after taking on some fuel we would be making the ‘short hop’ back to Gatwick. He then invited all passengers without luggage in the hold to disembark at Heathrow if they wished.
‘I grabbed my bags from the rack and walked to the front entrance of the plane. Two other passengers joined me and the three of us stepped out of the door and up to the top of the metal staircase that was already there.
“All we had to do, I imagined, was wait for the ground transportation to arrive and take us to the terminal building. That was the mistake.”
Mr Johnson said he and the other two passengers were not allowed to walk to the terminal because Gatwick was the flight’s official destination.
He said he “suspected” he “would have allowed” himself to be escorted back onto the plane, but he felt sorry for a woman who said she had recently lost her husband in a plane crash and refused to board again.
The former prime minister’s father said he did not understand why the police had to be called.
Ultimately, authorities decided to reclassify the flight “as a flight from Malaga to Heathrow,” he said, which “effectively meant” the original flight to Gatwick was cancelled.
Mr Johnson said he was “really sorry for the inconvenience caused to other passengers” but stressed he was glad he had “taken a stand” and said he had been thanked by “the poor woman whose husband had just died in a plane crash”.
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Friday’s incident at Gatwick caused major chaos, as all flights had to be temporarily suspended.
BA2279 was scheduled to depart for Vancouver but was forced to make a “high speed emergency stop”, causing the Boeing 777 to block the runway.
Video footage from passengers on board the plane showed fire trucks en route to the stationary aircraft, while passengers were told the takeoff had been “aborted”.
The airport’s runway was forced to close after a “rejected takeoff,” according to flight tracking website Flightradar24. The website reported the closure at 12:53 p.m. and reopened at 1:14 p.m.
A British Airways spokesman said at the time: ‘As a precaution, our pilots have decided to cancel take-off due to a technical issue. Safety is always our highest priority and we apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused.’
It was another setback for families hoping to travel this summer this week, with families flying out of Birmingham Airport facing long queues due to delays at the new £60m security gate.
British Airways and Heathrow have been approached for comment regarding the Stanley Johnson incident.