Air Canada Passenger Says She Woke Up Alone On Dark, Empty Plane

Tiffani Adams says she awoke hours after her flight landed, soon lost power in her phone, and was trapped inside the plane.
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Air Canada passenger Tiffani Adams says she woke up on a dark, empty plane hours after her flight landed in Toronto on June 9.

In a message on Air Canada’s Facebook page, Adams’ friend Deanna Noel-Dale wrote that she was sharing Adams’ experience on an Air Canada flight between Quebec City and Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

“I wake up around midnight (few hours after flight landed, freezing cold still strapped in my seat in complete darkness (I’m talking pitch black),” read the lengthy Facebook message posted on June 19.

The post explains that Adams had just been visiting Noel-Dale, who texted to make sure she’d arrived safely back in Toronto. When Adams woke up, according to the post, she saw the missed messages from Noel-Dale and realized she was still trapped on the plane. She then FaceTimed her friend in a panic, but her phone reportedly lost power.

According to the Facebook post, Adams tried charging her phone in USB ports, but the plane was off so there was no power, which also rendered the radio she found in the cockpit useless. She eventually found a flashlight and was able to open the plane door.

“Now I’m facing a 40-50ft drop to the pavement below,” the post reads. Unable to find a safe way to get down, Adams apparently tried to signal with the flashlight and eventually saw an airport employee on a luggage cart driving toward her.

Noel-Dale added on Facebook that the airport employee approached the plane because she had been calling to let airport authorities know her friend was trapped.

A representative for Air Canada told HuffPost the airline was “still reviewing the matter” and was in contact with the passenger.

The Facebook post says an airline representative offered to get Adams a limo or hotel room once she made it back to the airport, which she refused. Adams still has trouble sleeping and described herself as “a wreck” weeks after the incident, according to the post.

Air Canada confirmed that the incident had occurred but wouldn’t elaborate on how its disembarking protocol could possibly lead to such a situation, NPR and The Associated Press reported. A spokesperson for Toronto Pearson International Airport would not verify Adams’ account and referred HuffPost to Air Canada before noting that they could “empathize” with the passenger.

Noel-Dale did not immediately reply to HuffPost’s request to speak with Adams.

According to The Washington Post, Air Canada has dealt with this type of situation before. In 2010, a British law professor woke up on an empty plane parked in a hangar in Vancouver after he flew on Air Canada’s budget airline, Air Canada Jazz, from Calgary.

At the time, a spokesperson for Air Canada told ABC News that the situation had been reviewed extensively so an incident like this would not happen again.

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