A staff at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport was taken into police custody on July 14 after scaring a little girl by telling her that there was “a terrorist on the plane”.
On July 14, in full departure on vacation and while several unions of employees of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport were on strike, an Air France flight to Saint-Denis de La Réunion was cancelled.
According to information from Europe 1, this flight was simply canceled because of airport staff who whispered in the ear of a child who was boarding the plane: “Be careful, there is a terrorist in the plane.”
The little girl or her parents alerted the flight attendants, who immediately informed the captain.
The identity of the agent, aged 46, acting, has been sifted through the files of the DGSI: he is unknown to the intelligence services.
Air France indicated that “due to a suspicion of a malicious act […] the crew decided, in accordance with the security procedures in place, to interrupt the departure procedure of the plane and to have a security inspection carried out by the police. No real threat was observed during this inspection.
The duration of this inspection caused the prescribed time for the engagement of the crews to be reached, consequently, the flight was postponed to July 15, 2022 at 4 p.m. The passengers were disembarked and taken care of by Air France teams for the night.
In police custody, the employee told the police that he had wanted to “joke” with the little girl, specifying that he “did not want to harm anyone” and that he was not aware of the consequences he had engendered. He was summoned next February to be tried before the 16th chamber of the Bobigny judicial court where he will have to answer for the charge of obstructing the movement of an aircraft.
Delays related to the usual checks led the company to cancel this flight. Air France has lodged a complaint and assesses the damage at more than half a million euros, 550,000 euros precisely.