This is a story that’s too crazy not to share — a woman found herself locked inside of an Air Canada plane that had been parked and turn off for the night.
Tiffani O’Brien was supposed to have arrived in Toronto after a quick 90-minute flight, but when she woke up around midnight, the plane was deserted and freezing cold … and she was still buckled into her seat.
In a post a friend of O’Brien’s shared to the Air Canada Facebook page, she wrote, “I wake up around midnight (few hours after flight landed) freezing cold still strapped in my seat in complete darkness (I’m talking pitch black) as someone with [an] anxiety disorder … I can tell you how terrifying this was.”
O’Brien initially attempted to contact a friend, but her phone died only seconds into the call, and there was no power onboard the plane. She eventually managed to find a flashlight in the cockpit and open the main cabin door, only to find she was “facing a 40-50ft drop to the pavement below.” After signaling with the flashlight for some time, an airport employee driving a luggage cart finally noticed her.
In a statement to The Washington Post on Monday, June 24, a spokesman for the Toronto Pearson International Airport said airport personnel didn’t “have involvement in any part of the airline’s operational process that would result in such a situation.” But, the spokesman said, “We are aware of this passenger’s story and we can certainly empathize with the concern she must have felt.”
O’Brien says that representatives from Air Canada have apologized, but that she is still traumatized by the events on the plane. “I haven’t got much sleep since the reoccurring (sic) night terrors and waking up anxious and afraid I’m alone locked up someplace dark,” she wrote in the Facebook post.
Air Canada is now launching an investigation into how this situation arose — the company has confirmed the incident did occur, but will not comment on how O’Brien was overlooked as staff disembarked.
