Safety rules ‘not broken’ on plane with Polish government delegation
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
05.12.2016 15:11
Safety rules were not broken when Polish delegates and journalists reportedly overloaded a government plane after intergovernmental talks in the UK last week, a senior Polish official has said.
A Polish government Embraer 175. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Björn Strey.
The head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Beata Kempa, said that government rules for flights with top officials on board were “not broken during last week’s flight of the government delegation from London.”
The passengers, among them the Polish prime minister, deputy prime minister, foreign minister and defence minister, who flew to London in two planes for the talks, all boarded the earlier of two return flights scheduled for November 28, said a journalist from the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily, who was one of the passengers.
It remains unclear why all the passengers boarded the flight, the journalist said. He reported that “nobody wanted to make the decision to split them up”, adding that the pilot refused to fly the overloaded plane.
This resulted in an hour-long delay as negotiations among passengers ensued to determine who would stay and who would take the second flight six hours later, he said.
But Kempa said that rules in a confidential document outlining the organisation and safety of government flights with Poland’s most important politicians on board were "in no way broken."
“When no plane is available there may be a situation when decisions, by airports or carriers, need to be made on the go,” she added. (vb/pk)
Source: PAP, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna