A Porter Airlines flight in Canada was cancelled after a young child refused to sit down and buckle up, forcing the plane back to the terminal and delaying it past the runway’s closure.
The airline said on Sunday the parent and crew repeatedly tried to secure the child but had to return the plane to the terminal at Victoria International Airport to remove the two passengers, which caused the plane to miss its take-off window.
It said the child, whose age was not known, was ‘standing in their seat and would not secure their seat-belt’, adding: ‘Attempts by the accompanying parent and crew to address this were unsuccessful.’
Porter said removing the parent and child and their baggage delayed the Toronto-bound flight, PD444, on Thursday past the 12.30am runway deadline, forcing the remaining passengers to disembark.
It apologised to the other passengers, who were rebooked on a flight the following day.
According to data from Flight Aware, the new flight left Victoria Airport at 10.49pm local time on Friday and arrived in Toronto at 6.16am local time on Saturday morning.
It is not known how many people were affected by the delay, though the plane has 132 seats.
A Porter Airlines flight in Canada was cancelled after a young child refused to sit down and buckle up (File image)
It comes as an Alaska Airlines flight was suddenly grounded after unruly passengers allegedly threatened to take over the aircraft.
The Seattle-bound jet left the gate at Miami International Airport and was taxiing down the runway at 6.40pm on Sunday, August 9 when the worried pilot contacted Air Traffic Control and alerted authorities they were going into lockdown.
‘Ramp, Alaska 305, we have set the parking brake and we have a customer disturbance onboard right now, with threats coming from customers,’ the pilot could be heard telling an air traffic controller in audio obtained by ATCapp, an air traffic control tracking service.
‘We want to go into a lockdown protocol. We are shutting down the engine and parking brake set.’
Pilots are trained to initiate a lockdown protocol whenever the integrity of the cockpit is being threatened, keeping the cockpit doors shut until the threat is removed.
In an update moments later, he added: ‘The flight attendants have received threats from customers onboard the aircraft. The last thing we heard from the flight attendant is that we had a customer threaten to take the aircraft over.’
When the air traffic controller then asked whether the crew needed law enforcement to respond, the pilot replied: ‘Absolutely.’
Deputies from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Airport District were seen racing to one of the gates.
Alaska Airlines later confirmed two passengers were temporarily banned from the airline.
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