An airline passenger who was on a flight Monday from Toronto to Jamaica falsely claimed he had the coronavirus, forcing the WestJet plane to turn around.
A man from Thornhill, Ontario, has been ordered to appear before a court on March 9 after taking selfies on a Boeing 767 airliner and yelling that he had the coronavirus. The plane was carrying 243 passengers at the time. One witness said the man only scared the passengers as a “hoax to post to YouTube.”
“Out of an abundance of caution, our crew followed all protocols for infectious disease on board, including sequestering an individual who made an unfounded claim regarding Coronavirus,” a spokesman for WestJet said in a statement. “Due to the involvement of law enforcement, as well as the privacy of our guests, we are not able to provide additional information about the incident at this time.”
Medical personnel examined the 29-year-old man who made the claim and found that he did not have the virus, according to Sarah Patten, a spokeswoman for the local police. “A male was causing a disturbance on the flight, saying he had been to China and had the coronavirus,” Patten said.
The coronavirus, which popped up in January in the city of Wuhan, China, has killed over 400 people and infected more than 20,000 people in the country. Cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in other countries, including the United States.
Julie-Anne Broderick, a passenger on the plane, claimed the flight was “almost in Jamaica” and turned around as they were over the state of Florida.
“The flight attendants came, gave him a mask and gloves, and just told him that he had to move to the back of the plane,” she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “I guess this guy thought it was a funny joke, but it’s just really weird. We were all very frustrated, to just displace 240 people, it’s just so selfish. We’ve lost a day of our vacation”.
Broderick also vented about the incident in a Facebook post. “Little did he know, Jamaica and the US wouldn’t accept our flight so back to Canada we came where he was detained for a federal offence,” she wrote. “One day we will look back and laugh….”
