The Balearic Provincial Court has sentenced 15 of the 24 passengers who, on November 5, 2021, to forced landing at Palma airport simulating a medical emergency to sentences of up to 14 months in prison for the crime of aerial sedition. Two others of them have been sentenced for a crime against the rights of foreign citizens. During the delay, the travelers – seven of whom are in absentia and have not appeared in court – jumped from the plane, which was covering the Casablanca-Istanbul route, and, running along the runways, fled. . The event caused the closure of the airport – one of the facilities that supports the highest air traffic in Europe – and the paralysis of its activity for nearly four hours.
Initially, the Prosecutor’s Office, which describes the events that occurred in Palma as an “unprecedented situation in European airspace”, requested five years in prison for each of the accused for an alleged crime of sedition punishable in the Air Navigation Law or , as an alternative, three years of deprivation of liberty for a crime of coercion. However, the accused will not go to prison since each of them has been sentenced to the same time period in which they remained in preventive detention.
Specifically, the magistrates have sentenced 15 defendants for the crime of coercion in competition with aerial sedition as well as for a minor crime of mistreatment. Likewise, the court imposes another sentence on the traveler who pretended to be sick so that the plane would make a forced landing for a crime against the rights of foreign citizens, the same crime for which two other defendants have been convicted, who They helped two of the escaped passengers and were intercepted transporting them inside a van.
The 17 defendants have acknowledged that they acted through a preconceived plan, that of entering Spanish territory without complying with the legally established requirements. To do this, the passengers of the flight operated by Air Arabia Maroc, following the guidelines published on social networks by the Facebook group ‘Brooklyng’ – which has several profiles and numerous followers – devised to force an unscheduled landing, simulating a health emergency. in a Spanish airport that finally took shape in that of the Balearic capital.
Thus, when the plane was over Alicante at 5:18 p.m., Yassine J. pretended to be suffering from a diabetic illness that forced the pilots to gather information to make a possible diversion. At 5:28 p.m., one of them reported that the passenger was in a coma, making it necessary to make an emergency landing.
At 5:51 p.m., the aircraft landed in Spanish territory, landing on the runways of the Son Sant Joan airport. An ambulance from the airport’s emergency service immediately attended to the supposed patient, who was evacuated from the aircraft and then transferred to the emergency room of the Son Llàtzer Hospital accompanied by the also accused Yassine B. After a physical examination and carrying out complementary tests, the patient was discharged that same day.
As they have recognized, once their objective of reaching Spanish territory was achieved, the aircraft being able to fly and continue its route and in the absence of police presence, at around 6:30 p.m., one of the defendants unlocked the lever of one of the doors. departure, causing such a situation of chaos that the commander, according to the prosecutor, “was forced to remain inside the cabin of the plane to ensure the safety of the aircraft”, at which time the defendants “began to push and shaking the crew, who did not close the aircraft doors due to the fear they felt for their physical integrity.”
“Chaos and agitated confusion”
“Intentionally, they delayed the resumption of the flight and started a mutiny on the aircraft during its stay on Spanish soil with the door open, generating chaos and agitated confusion, with absolute contempt for the normal functioning of public institutions and services, as well as the provisions that Spanish legislation contemplates regarding border control and migratory flows, entering Spanish territory,” the public accusation asserted in its qualification document.
Thus, feigning nervousness and claiming to want to go outside the aircraft to smoke, the defendants disregarded the instructions of the aircraft commander and crew, who had expressly indicated the obligation to remain seated inside the aircraft and, forcing their exit By pushing and shaking both the plane crew and the ground staff, who were clearly frightened, they finally fled running along the airport’s landing strips.
The letter emphasizes that, with their “group uproar”, they caused “a dangerous situation for people, aircraft and facilities” as well as for air traffic itself, which represented a “frontal failure to comply with obligations” that, for safety reasons, imposes on passengers and users of aeronautical services Law 21/2003, of July 7, on Air Safety. With this, he adds, they generated an “unprecedented situation in European airspace that achieved notable publicity and international impact.” Up to 12 flights to Ibiza and Menorca were diverted; eleven departure and eleven arrival flights cancelled; all those whose departure or destination were Palma airport, delayed.
After their arrest, 22 of the passengers were sent to provisional prison. However, in January 2023 the Provincial Court decreed the release of all of them as a result of the reform of the crime of sedition carried out by the central government. However, the precautionary measure of passport withdrawal and the prohibition of leaving the island was applied to those investigated, at the same time that they were requested to enter a Foreigners Internment Center (CIE).
#Passengers #forced #emergency #landing #Palma #enter #Spain #convicted #air #sedition
