Stuck Passenger Freed From Seat With Hoist

It’s not often a rescue operation happens inside an airliner, but British Airways staff had to remove a door and use a hoist to free a plus-size passenger from the largest available seat on the airline. The man was in seat 1A in first class for the flight from Nigeria to Heathrow and reportedly availed himself of the delights a $7,000 ticket offers. After 6.5 hours in the air, however, he couldn’t get up.

Numerous attempts by BA staff to get him up and on his way failed, and a more complex effort was mounted. “A volumetric passenger is stuck in seat 1A,” an engineering staff member said in a memo the Sun said it had seen. “The plan is to remove the suite door and use a hoist to eject [him] from the seat.” It took three hours to free him.

BA staff did their best to care for the embarrassed passenger, who was unhurt in the incident. “It sounded funny but, actually, people felt sorry for him,” the Sun reported a staff member as saying. “It was abject humiliation in front of hundreds of disbelieving passengers. Crew members did all they could to calm the man.”