{"id":220142,"date":"2019-06-24T20:53:53","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T00:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=220142"},"modified":"2019-06-24T20:53:53","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T00:53:53","slug":"aviation-experts-question-security-passenger-safety-after-woman-left-on-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/24\/aviation-experts-question-security-passenger-safety-after-woman-left-on-plane\/","title":{"rendered":"Aviation experts question security, passenger safety after woman left on plane"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Tiffani Adams fell asleep during a roughly 90-minute Air Canada flight from Quebec City to Toronto, according to a friend’s recounting of the experience in a Facebook post on the airline’s social media page. (File Photo<\/a>: Air Canada\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aviation experts are raising security and passenger safety concerns after a woman was left sleeping on a parked Air Canada aircraft with the lights turned off and crew gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a total screw up,\u201d said Ross Aimer, CEO of Aero Consulting Experts and a former airline captain, of the woman’s ordeal.<\/p>\n

Tiffani Adams fell asleep during a roughly 90-minute Air Canada flight from Quebec City to Toronto, according to a friend’s recounting of the experience in a Facebook post on the airline’s social media page.<\/p>\n

When Adams woke up a few hours after the flight landed, she realized she was alone on a dark plane. Her phone died shortly after, so Adams found a flashlight in the cockpit and attempted to send an SOS signal through one of the plane’s windows.<\/p>\n

She then unbolted three latches on the main door, opened it and flagged down a nearby baggage cart operator, who rescued her.<\/p>\n

Aimer, who has roughly four decades of aviation service, said he’s never heard of such a situation and that multiple errors would have to be made to overlook a passenger during disembarking.<\/p>\n

It’s likely the flight crew was on the tail end of a multi-day set of flights and were anxious to get home as soon as possible, he said.<\/p>\n

Typically, crew must look up and down the cabin as they leave the plane, checking for people or any items passengers may have left behind, he said.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the crew will do a cursory clean, as well, he said, or a cleaning crew will arrive to do a more thorough job before a morning flight.<\/p>\n

Neither of those things seem to have happened here, Aimer said, and it’s possible the crew failed to check all the seats in their excitement to leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it was kind of multiple screw ups that caused this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Air Canada, which has confirmed the incident happened, did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.<\/p>\n

Aimer said a cleaning, catering or flight crew would have discovered Adams in the morning had she not been so proactive, but it’s possible someone with malicious intent could hide on a plane in this manner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s much easier to miss a person that is basically hiding under the seats,\u201d said Aimer.<\/p>\n

In that scenario, a person who is trained to fly planes could possibly attempt to hijack the aircraft, he said, pointing to a recent incident out of Seattle.<\/p>\n

In 2018, a 29-year-old airport worker named Richard Russell stole a Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 plane and took it for a 75-minute flight that ended with his death in a fiery crash. While Russell’s joy ride didn’t hurt anyone else, there was a nearby sold-out Pearl Jam concert that could have been a potential target.<\/p>\n

However, other airport security measures, like a constant police and security presence monitoring the grounds, would likely hinder a hijacking, said Aimer.<\/p>\n

Adams’s experience is a freak accident, said Gabor Lukacs, an air passenger rights activist.<\/p>\n

His biggest concern would be if the airline had left an ill or otherwise incapacitated passenger behind, who could be much more vulnerable in that situation.<\/p>\n

The frequent airline industry critic said he appreciates Air Canada’s willingness to assume responsibility and wishes they were more forthcoming in other situations.<\/p>\n

\u2014 With files from The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aviation experts are raising security and passenger safety concerns after a woman was left sleeping on a parked Air Canada …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":218685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-aleksandra-sagan","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220144,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220142\/revisions\/220144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}