Gabrielle Caron was on her way home from a vacation in Mexico, when her connecting flight from Toronto to Moncton took an unexpected turn.
Air Canada Rouge Flight 1502 was taxiing toward the runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport when Caron noticed flight attendants frantically running down the aisle of the cabin.
The plane eventually came to a halt before reaching the runway and Caron looked out the window.
“We could see the crew gathering around the plane, so we knew something was happening,” she said. “Then, the pilot tells us that there is someone from the crew in the luggage hold.”
When the worker eventually made it out safely, Caron said, he entered the airplane’s cabin to let everyone know he was safe.
The incident on the Airbus 321A, which can carry up to 184 passengers, happened Dec. 13.
“The aircraft cargo doors were inadvertently closed while a member of the ground crew was inside,” Air Canada said in an email over the weekend.
The airline also confirmed there were no injuries, and the incident is under investigation.
The union representing the ground crew workers said it couldn’t comment.
Caron said the plane eventually returned to the terminal, and passengers were asked to disembark while the flight crew filed paperwork.
She said the flight was delayed further after the pilot work hours “timed out,” and they couldn’t make the trip east.
It wasn’t until Caron talked to other passengers as they got off the plane that understood the gravity of the situation, she said.
“Some of the people that were sitting towards the back of the plane heard the person screaming and banging, trying to get their attention. One of the people even said that they called 911.”
Passengers hear banging, screaming from trapped baggage worker before takeoff
Caron said the flight was originally scheduled to leave at 2 p.m. that day, but after hours of uncertainty after the incident, she was notified at 1:15 a.m. the next day that her flight was cancelled.
Later on the second day, at 8 p.m., the plane eventually left.
“I think what, looking back, frustrated me the most is Air Canada’s decision to delay the situation every hour,” Caron said.
“Nobody had the foresight at any point to think like, you know, let’s just cancel the flight the first time we deboarded.”
Stephanie Cure, also from Moncton, was one of the passengers who heard the crew member’s cries for help.
She initially was using her headphones and didn’t hear anything until the people around her alerted her to the commotion.
“You could just kind of see, like, everyone was just like tense,” Cure said. “You can hear some muffled, like someone yelling for help.”
Cure then took out her phone and posted and started filming.
She eventually ended up posting it on her personal travel-focused social media accounts, and it got almost 500,000 views on Instagram alone.
“It just felt like such a crazy random experience and so I was like, I’m just gonna take my camera out. They’re just saying that this was all out of their control, and it felt like this was something that was in their control.”
After posting the video and talking to other passengers, Cure said, she heard that the crew member was “an extra crew that was helping out with this load,” and that’s why he wasn’t accounted for.
Air Canada said in a followup statement that the worker who was trapped was a member of their ground crew.
Cure said she was compensated with $1,000 because of the disruption.
However, Caron said Air Canada only sent her a $400 voucher and apologized for the delay.
According to aviation industry analyst John Gradek, passengers like Caron are entitled to more compensation.
Gradek, a professor at McGill University, said given the outcome for the passengers, there are grounds for legal action.
“As far as regulations are concerned, it’s $1,000 — $400 is something that’s there for a delay between three and six hours.”
He believes the occurrence was the result of the ground crew following improper procedures.
“When somebody closed the door of that baggage hold and permitted the aircraft to be dispatched, there was a task that was not completed of ensuring that the number of people that were standing around this individual dispatching the airplane seemed to be one short, and no action was taken,” said Gradek.
The aircraft never lifted off the ground, but if it had, Gradek said, the crew member would have survived the flight.
“There was no danger of, you know, hypothermia,” he said. “If this individual was in fact to complete the journey, it was just that you’re not supposed to be in there.”
As the investigation is being conducted, it should answer questions such as when was the door closed, how many bags were being loaded, and who closed the door, Gradek said.
“It’s pretty exhaustive in terms of the investigation that will take place,” he said. “The investigators are going to look at interviewing the individuals that were involved, not only the individual that was in the hold but also the crew that was associated.”
As for Caron, she is just happy that everyone was safe.
“Something to remember is that things are never certain when you travel,” she said. “Some of these inevitables are probably going to happen and to try to take it with as much patience as possible.”
