Unbearable heat

Plane becomes an incubator: passengers keel over

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/JUAN J. LABRADOR)

It literally got hot on a flight from Antalya in Turkey to the German city of Münster. The temperatures in the enclosed aircraft were unbearable. Passengers fainted.

The temperature inside the aircraft, which was due to take off from Turkey for Germany, reached 50 degrees. Bright red heads can be seen in videos doing the rounds on social media. Particularly tragic: babies were on board and suffered massively from the heat, and adults also panicked.

How could this happen?
Last Thursday (June 6), a charter flight operated by the Turkish company Mavi Gök was scheduled to fly from Antalya to Münster in the evening. During boarding, more and more people boarded the plane. But nothing happened. "We were on board for at least an hour. The people in front of us were even longer," Hüseyin Cakir told the Swiss news portal "Watson". Then the temperatures in the passenger cabin continued to rise.

Footage from the plane on TikTok:

There was a sense of helplessness among the passengers: no one informed them what was going on, and it was only half an hour later that they were told that there was probably a technical fault. But even then, nothing had been done. The doors were closed ...

The machine had turned more and more into a sauna. Those who didn't speak Turkish couldn't get any information from the cabin crew either.

No mercy for the passengers
Things didn't look too promising when it came to cooling down either. "We've been sitting here in this incubator for three quarters of an hour. Nothing happens here. No drinks are being handed out," said one TikTok user.

"People collapsed one by one, some of them were lying in the corridors," said Hüseyin Cakir. It was only after an hour that they started handing out ice. By then, however, the situation had already worsened.

Footage from the plane on TikTok:

Baby all red: "My child is about to keel over"
 In another TikTok video, a woman can be seen holding her baby in her arms - it is already all red from overheating. She shouts worriedly: "My child is about to keel over!"

After more than an hour, the staff decided that people could leave the plane again. Back at the gate, there was still no information or drinks.

"At some point, someone shouted: 'Here, people, you can help yourselves, there are drinks here'," says Cakir. People ran to the water bottles. The police then got involved - but they didn't help the passengers either.

The flight to Germany took off four hours later than originally scheduled. "Watson" states that neither the airline has yet responded to a request for comment.

Not an isolated case
Cases of this kind happen again and again. In July last year, for example, several passengers collapsed on a plane, yet no one was allowed to leave the aircraft. The next case followed in August, when passengers were stuck in a stationary aircraft for around seven hours.