A video that stirred up Egyptians’ anger on social media has gone viral since Wednesday, showing an Egyptian national passenger treated harshly by Romanian security guards onboard a flight coming from Bucharest to Cairo.
After a quarrel broke out between the Egyptian passenger and the flight crew, security forces from Bucharest airport interfered and handcuffed the passenger, forcing him to get off the airplane, according to the video published on social media.
“Although my wife changed her seat, the security forces forced us to leave the plane, cancelling our visas. I was taken by police car to the detention room at the airport and was handcuffed for three hours. At the same time, my wife was in diabetic coma and was taken to the hospital with my son,” Hassan Salama, the passenger dragged out of the flight, told ElWatan news.
The Egyptian Ministry of Emigration stated on Friday, that the Egyptian ambassador to Romania, Salah Abdel Maksoud, clarified that the Egyptian and Moroccan embassies are conducting investigations with the concerned authorities and that the embassy will report any progress.
The statement explains that Salama and his family were onboard the Romanian airline flight coming from Paris to Cairo and had a transit in Bucharest airport. The quarrel ensued between Salama’s wife, a Moroccan lady, and a member of plane crew. The wife had placed her bags at the emergency exit, refused to remove them, and refused to change her seat. The issue at the scene was that the wife also could not understand the English-speaking flight attendant.
After cancelling the passenger and his family’s tickets, they took Turkish airlines from Bucharest to Sharm El-Sheikh airport, then to Cairo, the statement continued.
However, there are other reports from various news agencies which state that the woman who refused to remove her bags from in front of the emergency exit spat at the flight attendant. Daily News Egypt could not verify these reports.
