BBC journalist and wheelchair user Frank Gardner expressed outrage at being left on a plane after it landed at Gatwick outside central London.
The security correspondent was stranded on the aircraft after flying to the West Sussex airport with Iberia Express on Thursday night.
It comes after a passenger with restricted mobility died at Gatwick on June 15th. He fell while going up an escalator after leaving an aircraft without a helper.
FFS not again! Just back from exhausting week covering NATO summit in Madrid and quelle surprise, Im still stuck on the plane at Gatwick. Iberia crew are gone and a new crew has come onboard. Just WHY are UK airports so consistently crap at getting disabled people off planes ? pic.twitter.com/KuJz4eIJCy
— Frank Gardner (@FrankRGardner) June 30, 2022
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Mr Gardner has been left on planes at UK airports several times in recent years.
During the latest incident he posted an image on Twitter from inside the aircraft with no other passengers in sight.
He wrote: “FFS not again! Just back from exhausting week covering Nato summit in Madrid and quelle surprise, I’m still stuck on the plane at Gatwick.
“Iberia crew are gone and a new crew has come onboard.
“Just WHY are UK airports so consistently crap at getting disabled people off planes?”
He added: “It never happens abroad, only in UK.”
Once he was able to leave the aircraft, Mr Gardner wrote: “Off the plane now – only a 20-minute delay which is mild – but ground handlers said ‘nobody told us there was a disabled passenger onboard’.
“Airline, Iberia, insist they did.
“All in all, so tedious and boring!”
Mr Gardner was left partially paralysed after being shot by al Qaida gunmen in Saudi Arabia in 2004.
