Soldiers kept on plane for six hours over uniforms
13.03.08
Over 120 soldiers returning from Afghanistan for a weeks rest were kept on a plane at Manchester Airport for six hours because they were wearing their uniforms, and therefore presented a security risk, the Daily Mail reports. The Yorkshire Regiment soldiers, many of whom hours earlier had been in combat against the Taliban, also went without food from 05:00 until well into the afternoon, and lost a day of their much needed break.
MPs described their treatment as ‘clumsy and insulting’ and ‘outrageous and unacceptable’ while the Ministry of Defence said that what had happened had clearly been ‘a mistake’. However, a spokesman for the airport told the newspaper that the delay was caused after the pilot decided to wait for the fog to lift in hopes of returning to the Brize Norton Air Force Base in Oxfordshire, the original destination.
The ordeal began after freezing fog caused the plane, which was carrying 128 frontline soldiers home for a week of ‘rest and recuperation’, to be diverted to Manchester on February 19. The aircraft sat at the passenger terminal and later was moved to the freight terminal. Once they exited the plane, the soldiers were forced to wait 50 minutes in freezing temperatures until coaches could pick them up.
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