Flight cancelled after child refuses to wear seatbelt
Passengers had to be re-booked onto a flight the following day
A flight in Canada had to be cancelled after a "frightened" child refused to buckle their seatbelt leading hundreds of passengers to be hauled off the plane and left to find somewhere to stay for the night.
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The Porter Airlines flight on 6 August from Victoria to Toronto was forced to return to the terminal after a young child was "standing in their seat and would not secure their seat belt".
Both the child and the mother were removed from the flight, however the delay meant the flight could not depart before the runway closed just after midnight.
Passengers had to be re-booked onto a flight the following day, leaving them forced to find somewhere to stay for the night.
Flight PD444 had just left the terminal and was heading towards Victoria airport's runway, spokesperson Brad Cicero said.
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But the child's refusal to buckle up created an unsafe situation meaning the aircraft could not take off, according to Cicero, with crews opting to return to the terminal to disembark the child and mother.
The time taken to return the aircraft to the gate, remove the child and parent, retrieve their luggage and refile the paperwork took so long that the plane missed the airport's 12.30am runway closure.
The flight eventually left on Friday afternoon.
"We apologise for the effect this had on other passengers, who were able to depart on a flight the following day," Cicero said.
One passenger said there was "a lot of frustration" but that the child had not been badly behaved but rather seemed "scared".
Aryeh Kozuch told CBC Toronto that the child "kept hiding under their seat. If they got forced into being strapped in, they just kind of slid out underneath".
Another passenger said the process "took forever" with the child not being removed from the plane until 11.30pm, by which point travellers "had been on the flight for almost an hour".
Hillary Hertzberg told CBC she wanted Porter to cover the costs for the passengers.
Porter declined to say whether it would offer compensation.