The America Airlines plane took off from Buenos Aires this Thursday and was scheduled to land in New York.
It's a scenario worthy of a Halloween horror film. A plane taking off from Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires on Thursday, and heading to New York, had to turn around while flying over the Cordoba region. The American Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff due to strange noises heard in the hold. As if a person was knocking from below to get out.
In any case, this is what the crew and passengers who reported these noises described. But once the machine landed, an operation carried out this Friday by the airport security police (PSA) hit a bone. There was no one, nor any trace of a stowaway.
Nothing suspicious
The Special Tactical Assault Group (GEAT), the Explosives and Special Weapons Control Group (GEDEX) and canine units were deployed, with the presence of personnel from the National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC) , Firefighters and SAME (Argentinian Samu).
Contacted by the Argentinian media Clarín, the PSA detailed the exact reasons given by the pilot during his emergency landing. “Noises were heard in the hold, enough to suggest that there was something unusual. The captain reported a security concern due to noises heard coinciding with the presence of a person in the hold” , she shared.
The hold was thoroughly inspected and nothing abnormal was detected. The sniffer dogs didn't find anything suspicious either. Present on board at the time of the incident, a journalist from the Argentinian media Cadena 3 explained that the pilot had announced his emergency landing because a person was locked in the hold and was hitting with a blunt object.
Stuck inside the plane for several hours and without clear information on the evolution of the situation, the passengers then expressed their dissatisfaction. “It’s unusual, like a film,” explained a passenger in a video broadcast in recent hours. “How scary,” shared another passenger who filmed the police intervention scene.
