More than 54 passengers were told to “just get out of the plane” and “evacuate” shortly after they landed in Winnipeg last night after a WestJet plane destined for Toronto was diverted.
The Boeing 737-700 was about an hour and a half into its flight from Edmonton when it made an emergency landing at Winnipeg’s airport.
The plane remained on the Winnipeg airport’s tarmac on Tuesday, but most passengers continued on to their destinations. They went out on the 5:30 a.m. flight to Toronto, according to a spokesperson with the Winnipeg Airports Authority.
Claudia Morroquin said the pilot announced Monday night that the plane would have to land in Winnipeg, and everyone was calm until the engines shut down on the tarmac in Winnipeg and the flight attendants started shouting “evacuate.”
“He just shouted, ‘Just get out of the plane. Get out of the plane,’ and then just everybody started panicking because only the front exit had the slides – nothing else,” said Morroquin. “I was closer to the exit in the middle, so I had two people jumping in front of me.”
Six passengers were injured during the emergency evacuation. To get everyone off the plane as quickly as possible, WestJet used the inflatable emergency slides on the plane.
There was no word on the extent of the injuries.
But when Morroquin jumped, she sprained her ankle.
“When I landed on my feet because of maybe the adrenalin, I didn’t feel the pain because they were just telling us, ‘Get out of there!’ flat out,” she said.
WestJet officials have only said the aircraft had to make an emergency landing due to a “threat,” but have not released any details.
“The details of the threat will be the subject of a police investigation,” the Calgary-based airline said on Twitter.
near-term threat, there’s no increase in hazard in Canada or elsewhere when it comes to flying airliners,” he said.
TSB says threats are police matters
The Transportation Safety Board said it won’t investigate since threats are considered criminal and as such are a police matter.
“The Transportation Safety Board has been informed but is not considering a full investigation. We did collect information on the injuries sustained by passengers on exiting the aircraft,” TSB spokesman John Cottreau said Tuesday.
The situation also caused disruptions to another WestJet flight, which was scheduled to land in Winnipeg, but was diverted to Brandon, Man., as the airport was temporarily closed down.