An Israeli man with an amputated leg was forced to crawl out of a plane at Ben Gurion Airport after waiting in his seat for wheelchair service to help him leave the aircraft, according to new footage that emerged Sunday.
Avner Mola landed at the airport last week after a vacation in Turkey only to discover that a wheelchair was not waiting for him upon arrival.
Amputee urged to crawl off the plane
(Photo: Asaf Chen)
Once he was fed up of waiting, and the cleaning staff had already finished sterilizing the cabin, Mola decided to crawl out of the plane.
"I felt humiliated," he told Ynet on Monday morning. "I felt anguished, the staff looked at me, I unusually try not to seek help from people, but I didn't have a choice, what can I say, I was in pain with my face town from the humiliation."
Mola's condition requires the airline to call for ground services to help him depart the plane upon arrival, but AnadoluJet, a subsidiary of Turkish Airlines, failed to do so.
"Upon arrival I usually wait, I need to wait until all the passengers depart and then they take me with a narrow wheelchair from the plane out to a motorized wheelchair."
This time, however, the lack of service pushed Mola to the edge. "The guy came, a nice man, he said he's sorry, but one of the six narrow wheelchairs broke, I told him 'It's fine, you want me to wait?' He told me, 'no, I want you to get up and we'll help you walk.' I told him, 'my dear friend, my leg is almost completely amputated, how do you want me to walk?'
"They asked me to walk to the exit because the wheelchair they did have was regular and not narrow. I waited there for a while, they already vacuumed the whole plane, the plane was already almost ready for the next flight and I was still there, in the end I gave in, I sat on the floor and started crawling out of the plane.
"With the last bit of my strength, I got to about halfway through the corridor, and then they brought the motorized wheelchair."
Mola added: "When I began to crawl some security officer came and started to get angry at them and at the guy, I heard him say that it's shameful, but at least I got the motorized wheelchair".
The Laufer Aviation ground handling services of the Ben Gurion Airport responded to the incident: "We apologize to Mr. Mola for the rough experience he had to go through and we're currently in direct communication with the airline that flew him in in order to investigates the incident, and make sure that similar events don't happen in the future".