Disruption was caused on a Qatar Airways flight from Athens bound for Qatar on Monday, with passengers complaining that they were left for hours in the grounded plane, where the air conditioning was not working amid high temperatures.
A video posted on TikTok shows smoke billowing from the plane before boarding flight QR-204, which was scheduled to depart at 2pm but ultimately did not take place.
In another video from inside the aircraft, passengers are seen trying to cool off in a makeshift manner, with the air conditioning not working.
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On board the plane was Australian 7News channel worker Jodie Grokock, who described that “they started the plane which immediately stopped. Then they started the engine again, but again it stopped immediately. In the end I lost count of how many times this happened in two hours. After two hours the pilot told us there was a technical issue.”
“We were dripping with heat. We couldn’t stop sweating and people were upset and complaining. Someone was saying ‘we’re going to die, let us down. I asked for water and they said they didn’t have any,” Grokock added.
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According to her, the suffering continued after disembarkation, as they had to queue for several hours until they could arrange to board a new flight on Tuesday morning.
Several Muaythai athletes travelling to take part in the IFMA World Championships were also on board the plane, with one of them also posting a video from inside.
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