My plane was hit by birds
COMING back from your holiday should be straightforward – but for one British couple, a recent easyJet flight turned into a nightmare.
Olly Andrews, 36, and Lucy Andrews, 32, from South East London were less than 10 minutes into their flight from Amsterdam to London Luton Airport when disaster struck.
The couple had been in the Dutch capital for a four-day mini-break to see their best friend get married.
But just after taking off to return home to London, the couple heard something ominous.
Lucy said: “I heard a massive thud and I looked at Olly and I was like what was that?
“Not only that but the air stewardesses suddenly went quite quiet at the back.
Read more on travel inspo
“We were in the back seats, so we could hear everything and people started looking around in confusion.
“Then we were flying really low – we were going over the sea and I could see the wind turbines looked really close up.
“I was like something’s wrong, why are we flying so low to the sea and something just felt off.”
There was then an overhead message from the pilot to say that the plane had been hit by a bird and that they needed to return to Amsterdam Airport.
Lucy added: “[The pilot] was quite calm and said there’s nothing to worry about.
Olly said: “The pilot said we’d hopefully be landing in 10 minutes – that actually turned out to be like 25 minutes.”
Lucy continued: “I’m quite a nervous flyer, so I was like ‘oh my god’.
“You know it must be pretty bad if we had to do an emergency landing back in Amsterdam.
“The captain said it was most likely a seagull we hit.”
Despite being told to stay put, when the plane landed a collection of curious passengers flooded to the front of the plane to find out what happened.
She said: “As we got off the plane we could see there was gore and blood splattered all over the cockpit window and blood smeared everywhere.
“The pilot wouldn’t have been able to see out properly – it was everywhere.”
It became clear that the bird had hit the windscreen and then also hit other parts of the plane as blood was splattered over the tail, Lucy explained.
After getting off of the plane, the couple spent the following two and a half hours in the airport waiting for the next available flight.
During this time, there were no easyJet reps or staff around and the couple kept checking for updates via the easyJet app.
“We could only see the Gate G section and Amsterdam is a silent airport, so they didn’t announce updates.
“There was one update, but we couldn’t hear it.
“We kept refreshing the app and we couldn’t see anything, but they were giving quite regular updates such as there weren’t any sandwiches on board.
“We just wanted to go home.
The update said: “We’re sorry that we won’t be able to offer you any sandwiches on your flight today.
“We’ll still have a selection of snacks as well as hot and cold drinks on board.”
EasyJet did give all passengers a £6 voucher for food and drink at the airport though.
They also received a message to explain what had happened, saying: “There has been an additional delay because the plane that was scheduled for your flight today experienced a bird strike.
“Because the issue could not be resolved, we’ve decided to arrange a new plane to fly you to your destination today.”
EasyJet had to then send a plane from London Luton to collect the passengers and crew – although Lucy said they nearly missed it.
She explained: “We wouldn’t have got on the plane if we hadn’t seen a passenger who we recognised heading towards a gate and asked if there had been an announcement, which they had been.”
The couple then had to run through the airport to make their flight.
Lucy added: “We were really scared for other passengers because we recognised one passenger who was asleep and we had to wake them up and be like you’ve got to go the flight is here.”
Directly next to Lucy and Olly, the seats were empty despite a couple sitting there in the previous flight.
It wasn’t clear if this couple made the flight or not.
“The app updates were quite poorly handled because we really should have been given like regular updates.
Looking back on the incident, Lucy added: “It was described by easyJet as a ‘exceptional circumstance’ which I agree with, it was a freak incident and not the fault of easyJet.
“It was the fact that the updates for the flight weren’t communicated with the passengers.
“They have an app which gives updates and they chose to send us a message apologising that there would not be sandwiches served to us on the flight, but failed to tell us when the next flight actually was.
“It left several passengers in the lobby not knowing that the plane was being boarded.”
EasyJet has been contacted for comment.
In other aviation news, here’s what business class is like on one of the world’s best airlines – but the pre-flight lounge is even better.
Plus, a budget airline is scrapping six routes from Europe – including a mega-cheap UK flight.