A Jet2 pilot on course to Antalya, Turkey from Birmingham, England reportedly fainted when flying at 30,000 feet.
The second pilot declared an emergency on Flight LS1239 after the plane experienced moderate turbulence and the plane was landed in Thessaloniki, Greece. All passengers and crew members were reported safe and the flight deviation was reported to be a precautionary measure.
A replacement flight crew was bought in to fly the plane to Antalya, and the passengers were delayed by over eight hours and given meal vouchers at the airport.
One passenger told Birmingham Live how the ordeal started and what happened when the plane hit turbulence.
“While we were all [seated] we noticed something was going on at the front of the plane,” the passenger said.
“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 said that airline crew did all they could to keep people updated on what was happening at the time. The travellers were reportedly stuck on the runway in Thessaloniki for more than an hour before an ambulance arrived to pick up the pilot. Jet2 stewards reportedly told flyers the pilot had “fainted.”
“People were worried as we’d just been through turbulence and we didn’t know what was happening,” the traveller told Brimingham Live. “[Passengers] then got frustrated as once we were off the plane no one was updating us.
“The crew were amazing but once in the airport it was chaos.”
A Jet2 spokesperson said: “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 were flown to Thessaloniki so that we could get customers on their way to Antalya that same evening.
“We communicated this to our customers as soon as possible, and our teams worked extremely hard to look after everyone. We would like to apologise to anyone affected by this unforeseen delay.”
As airlines grapple with pilot shortages, the strain on pilots and excessive workloads has become a problem. Pilots are required to work longer hours for the airlines to keep their operations steady.
Ethiopian Airlines suspended two pilots after they reportedly fell asleep while operating passenger flight ET343 recently, causing them to overshoot their landing.
The pilots could not be reached by air traffic control and were only woken when an alarm alerting the two that the autopilot system had disconnected. They circled back to their destination, Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and landed safely 25 minutes later.
In June, the CEO of European budget carrier Wizz Air caught backlash after he told pilots to push through their exhaustion.
“We cannot run this business when every fifth person of a base reports sickness, because the person is fatigued,” said József Váradi, citing compensation fees. “Sometimes it is required to take the extra mile. The damage is huge when we are canceling the flight, it’s huge.”
