The Maltese newspaper “The Times of Malta” reported that four Moroccan passengers fled yesterday evening, Wednesday, from a Turkish Airlines plane, after it made an emergency landing at Luka International Airport in Malta, after one of the passengers fell ill suddenly.
According to the newspaper, the accident occurred at approximately 1:45 p.m. when the Turkish plane coming from Istanbul and heading to Marrakesh requested permission to land in Malta due to the deteriorating health condition of one of the passengers.
Shortly after the plane landed, while the crew members were working to recover the sick passenger’s bag, four Moroccan passengers escaped through the back door of the plane.
This incident required immediate security intervention from the police and the Maltese Defense Forces to search for the fleeing passengers in the areas adjacent to the airport, as Maltese news sites reported that some of them were arrested, while the search for others is still ongoing.
As for the traveler whose health condition caused the accident, he was transferred to Mater Dei Hospital, where he is currently under police guard, according to the same sources.
According to data from the “Flighter Radar 24” website, flight No. “TK619” had taken off from Istanbul at 8:56 AM GMT, heading to Marrakesh, but after two hours of flight, the captain requested permission to land at Malta Airport after the situation deteriorated. The health condition of a Moroccan passenger suddenly occurred.
It is noteworthy that this incident is not the first of its kind, as there have been repeated incidents of Moroccan passengers escaping after their planes made emergency landings at European airports. In July 2022, 28 Moroccan passengers tried to escape from a plane that was coming from Casablanca, after an emergency landing in Barcelona, Spain.
Before that, Spain’s Palma de Mallorca Airport witnessed a similar incident in November 2021, when a group of Moroccan passengers who were on a flight from Casablanca to Istanbul managed to escape from the plane after its emergency landing.
