Aviation experts question security, passenger safety after woman left on plane

Aviation experts are raising security and passenger safety concerns after a woman was left sleeping on a parked Air Canada aircraft with the lights turned off and crew gone.

A friend recounted Tiffani Adams’s ordeal in a Facebook post, saying she fell asleep during a roughly 90 minute flight from Quebec City to Toronto and woke up a few hours after landing on an empty, dark plane.

Adams eventually unbolted a door and was rescued by a baggage cart operator.

Ross Aimer, CEO of Aero Consulting Experts and a former airline captain, says he’s never heard of such an incident in his roughly four decades of aviation service, and that multiple errors would have to be made to overlook a passenger during disembarking.

He says while a cleaning, catering or flight crew would have discovered Adams in the morning had she not been so proactive, it’s possible someone with malicious intent could hide on a plane in this manner and attempt to hijack it.

The airline has confirmed the incident happened, but did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

—With files from The Associated Press

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