announcement

The dad was on his way to Morocco with his girlfriend and best pal when the pilot’s announcement left him feeling terrified – and it only got worse from there

A horrified dad has sworn off flying for life after his Ryanair flight was forced into an emergency landing not long after takeoff from Manchester Airport.

On March 16, Ashton Small, 41, from Liverpool, was among the passengers on board the RK 1266 flight destined for Agadir in Morocco.

The plane set off around 4pm but Ashton says they were only about an hour and a half into their journey before the pilot announced they had to divert back to Manchester.

The ordeal when they landed only added to Ashton’s fears, with fire engines racing towards the plane – an image that has left the dad “too traumatised” to even entertain the thought of future flights.

Travelling along with his girlfriend Danielle Clark – who was on her first ever flight – and his best pal, Ashton told our sister paper the Liverpool Echo: “I have trauma from being on that flight.”

He vividly described the gut-wrenching minutes the sky, explaining: “We had been in the air for no more than one hour and 30 minutes, the plane just kept turning left then right, left, right, I had started to panic. I was panicking more because I wasn’t sitting next to my partner or friend either.

“The captain then told us we were going to have to land back at Manchester airport. You hear about planes crashing, I thought I was having a near death experience,” reports Dublin Live.

Ashton recounted his terrifying experience during the rough landing, saying: “The landing was horrible… I just wanted to get off. It scared me seeing the fire engines.”

“When we were landing I turned airplane mode off on my phone and rang my mum and dad straight away. I phoned them and said if anything happens I love you both. I told my partner I just wanted to go home.”

He was so scared that when they finally hit the ground, he gripped his seat tightly, feeling terrified of the scene unfolding on the runway.

Expressing his disappointment over the whole ordeal, Ashton added: “The pilot or Ryanair didn’t even say sorry to us for the inconvenience. It has put me off going on holiday anymore, it was a terrible experience.

“I thought I was going to die. I have a little boy who is four and the only holiday I will be going on now is driving trips. I don’t trust planes now, I can’t, not after that.”

“You never know what is going to happen. When I got home to my mum and dad they both hugged me and said they don’t want me going on any other planes, I’m a 41-year-old man, but when I phoned them they said they genuinely thought something was going to happen.”

A spokesperson for Ryanair said at the time: “This flight from Manchester to Agadir (Sun, 16 Mar) returned to Manchester shortly after take-off due to a minor technical issue. The aircraft landed normally at Manchester Airport and passengers disembarked.

“To minimise disruption to affected passengers, we quickly arranged for a replacement aircraft to operate this flight, which departed to Agadir at 19:05 local that same day. We sincerely apologise to affected passengers for any inconvenience caused.”

The governmental body has announced that mobile signal blackspots are set to be a thing of the past on many of Britain’s key train routes. This comes after Network Rail, owned by the Government, signed a deal with telecoms firms Neos Networks and Freshwave

A major Department for Transport (DfT) announcement could soon see the end of an £18billion problem facing the UK’s railways.

The governmental body has announced that mobile signal blackspots are set to be a thing of the past on many of Britain’s key train routes. This comes after Network Rail, owned by the Government, signed a deal with telecoms firms Neos Networks and Freshwave.

Travellers frequently experience dropped calls and poor internet connectivity while on trains. Dubbed Project Reach, the new agreement will see Neos Networks lay down 1,000km (621 miles) of high-speed fibre optic cable along sections of the East Coast Main Line, West Coast Main Line, Great Western Main Line, and Chiltern Main Line as an initial step.

The DfT has expressed hopes to extend the cabling to over 5,000km (3,107 miles) in the “near future”. Freshwave is set to address signal issues in 57 tunnels spanning almost 50km (31 miles), including tackling the notorious Chipping Sodbury tunnel near Bristol.

READ MORE: ‘I tried to work from a train for the day and came across a £18bn problem’

Additionally, mobile network operators are poised to pour investment into new 4G and 5G infrastructure at 12 major railway stations: Birmingham New Street, Bristol Temple Meads, Edinburgh Waverley, Euston, Glasgow Central, King’s Cross, Leeds, Liverpool Lime Street, Liverpool Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Paddington, and Waterloo.

The DfT has hailed the agreement as a fusion of public and private sector investment and infrastructure, which is anticipated to save taxpayers “around £300 million”.

The financial incentive to out connection issues on the UK’s rail network is clear. Economics Professor Daniel Susskind, from Kings College London, estimates that the total economic value tied up in time spent on board trains in the UK is around £18 billion a year.

If all trains in the country had fast, reliable internet, then either commuting white collar workers could put in extra hours rather than reading a book or looking out of the window, or time spent in the office could be made shorter by starting the workday from the carriage of a train.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has hailed a major development as “a game-changer for passengers up and down the country,” promising to transform trips from Paddington to Penzance and Edinburgh to Euston.

“By boosting connectivity and tackling signal blackspots, we are also ensuring a more reliable and efficient service,” she said.

READ MORE: ‘I went to UK region known for being dull – I’ll definitely be back for more’READ MORE: ‘I tried the UK’s new high-tech £200million trains with underfloor heating’

Alexander highlighted that these improvements align with wider objectives, stating, “This means better journeys for passengers while supporting our broader plan for change goals of economic growth and digital innovation.”

Jacqueline Starr, the Rail Delivery Group’s executive chair and CEO, expressed her enthusiasm for the project: “We know how much customers value good mobile connections when they travel and we’re delighted that a digitally connected railway will soon become a reality.

“We know how much customers value good mobile connections when they travel and we’re delighted that a digitally connected railway will soon become a reality.”

Starr also pointed out the economic and environmental advantages of rail travel: “Travelling by rail drives economic growth by connecting businesses and communities, improving productivity, and supporting the transition to net zero.

“Travelling by rail drives economic growth by connecting businesses and communities, improving productivity, and supporting the transition to net zero.”

She further added that the telecoms upgrade across the network will enable everyone to stay in touch during their travels: “This vital upgrade to telecoms across the network will give everyone the opportunity to stay connected, wherever they’re headed.

“This vital upgrade to telecoms across the network will give everyone the opportunity to stay connected, wherever they’re headed.”

The rollout of Project Reach’s infrastructure is set to kick off next year, with completion targeted for 2028.

They groveled at his feet when they visited him at the White House in April, owner Mark Walter applauding when he lied about egg prices and team president Stan Kasten laughing at his attempts at humor.

They remained silent when he flooded their city with federal agents, chief marketing officer Lon Rosen refusing to comment on the racist kidnapping sweeps terrorizing the very community that helped them break attendance records.

And what did the Dodgers receive in exchange for betraying their fans and sucking up to President Trump?

A knock at the door from immigration enforcement.

The Dodgers learned what many Trump voters already learned, which is that Agent Orange doesn’t always reward subservience.

So much for all of their front-office genius. So much for staying out of politics.

Federal agents in unmarked vehicles formed a line at Dodger Stadium’s main entrance on Thursday, apparently with the intention of using a section of the parking lot as a processing center for detainees who were picked up during a morning immigration raid.

The Dodgers could look away when ICE was causing havoc in other parts of town, but even the morally compromised have limits. More than 40% of Dodgers fans are Latino. Transforming Dodger Stadium into ground zero for the administration’s war on brown people would be financial suicide for the franchise.

The agents were denied entry, according to the team.

There was speculation in and around the organization about whether the presence of the federal agents was a form of retaliation by a notoriously vindictive administration. Just a day earlier, the Dodgers said they would announce on Thursday plans to assist immigrant communities affected by the recent raids. In the wake of the visit, the announcement was delayed.

Ultimately, what did the Dodgers gain from their silent complicity with Trump?

They further diminished their stature as vehicles of inclusion, a tradition that included the breaking of baseball’s color barrier by Jackie Robinson and the expansion of the sport’s borders with the likes of Fernando Valenzuela, Hideo Nomo and Chan Ho Park.

They broke their sacred bond with the Latino community that was forged over Valenzuela’s career and passed down for multiple generations.

They at least resisted immigration agents’ efforts to annex their parking lot, but how much damage was already done? How much trust was already lost?

Consider this: When photographs of the unmarked vehicles in front of Dodger Stadium started circulating online, the widespread suspicion was that federal agents were permitted by the Dodgers to be there.

That was later revealed to be untrue, but what does that say about how the Dodgers were perceived?

Federal agents stand outside Gate E of Dodger Stadium on Thursday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Their announcement about their impending announcement looked like a cynical effort to reverse a recent wave of negative publicity, which started with Rosen refusing to comment on the immigration sweeps.

Asked if the Dodgers regretted visiting the White House, Rosen said, “We’re not going to comment on anything.”

On the day of the “No Kings” demonstrations, a 30-year-old performer named Nezza sang a version of the national anthem in Spanish that was commissioned in 1945 by the U.S. State Department under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Nezza, whose full name is Vanessa Hernández, later posted a video on her TikTok account showing a Dodgers employee directing her to sing in English. She disobeyed the order, explaining that because of what was happening in Los Angeles, “I just felt like I needed to do it.”

In subsequent interviews, Nezza said her agent was called by a Dodgers employee, who said Nezza was to never return to Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers later clarified that Nezza wasn’t banned from the ballpark, but the incident nonetheless struck a chord. Reports of American citizens being detained or harassed have surfaced, creating a feeling the raids are as much about making brown-skinned people feel unwelcome as they are about deporting undocumented migrants. Nezza’s experience symbolized this feeling.

The incident resulted in widespread calls for a Dodgers boycott, which, coincidentally or not, was followed by the Dodgers teasing their announcement of support for immigrants.

The divisive environment created by Trump forced the Dodgers to take a side, however passively. Now, they have to win back angry fans who pledged allegiance to them only to be let down. Now, they have to deal with potential retaliation from the Mad King they pathetically tried to appease.