Royal Air Maroc Flight Evacuation Strands 100 Montreal Students at Airport

The young people and the staff were supposed to take off on a Royal Air Maroc flight on Friday at 10 pm to participate in a football tournament. But an hour later, the plane had not taken off and the crew had to evacuate them urgently due to a mechanical breakdown. "We had to get out urgently. No one could give us the exact time. It was panicking because we have a lot of children who are alone," explained the president of the Montreal Sports School, José Luis Timoteo, during a press conference broadcast on Facebook on Saturday.

Royal Air Maroc informed that the flight was suspended, without providing any other explanations to the passengers and without specifying whether it was postponed. The passengers "had to get out and check out all the luggage without knowing where to go and without knowing who to talk to," laments Timoteo. The young people, aged 12 to 14, and their chaperones were finally accommodated in a hotel provided by the Montréal-Trudeau airport staff, who also did not have any information from Royal Air Maroc about what was happening.

The group of football players and their chaperones, stranded at the airport, was supposed to join another group that has already gone to Spain via an Air Canada flight. This situation compromises the participation of the Montreal team in the tournament, which is scheduled to start this Sunday in Barcelona. At least four of the team’s matches have already been canceled and the coaches and buses rented and paid for to transport the players have also had to be canceled.