Gran’s five days of hell after losing her passport on plane
HOLIDAYMAKER Tracy McKellar has told how she spent five days held by Spanish border officials after her passport fell out of her bag on a plane.
The British grandmother of five had taken a Ryanair flight to Madrid for her fortnightly visit to her Spanish home earlier this month.
She said: “When I got to border control I realised that my passport, which I’d had to board the plane, must have fallen out of my bag.
“I ran to customer services to ask them to search the plane but they were in no hurry to look. I was worried that the plane would take off with my passport but they didn’t seem to care.” After spending five hours trying to get her passport, Tracy, 53, who is a live-in carer from the Wirral, was led to an immigration room by police.
She was interviewed by border control officers then led to the windowless room where she was forced to wait with 30 others.
Border control staff in Madrid insisted she could not leave until the next flight back to Liverpool – but there would not be one for five days. She said they took her phone and luggage – leaving her without a change of clothes.
She only had time to phone her daughter before her mobile was taken by officials. Ryanair said staff searched for her passport on the plane but could not find it.
Tracy recalled: “The border control said that as I am no longer an EU citizen they could only help me so much.
“They could give me documentation to fly back to the UK but I had to fly back via the same carrier and to the same airport. I begged them to let me fly to any airport at all but they wouldn’t let me. I was given a social worker who phoned the British consulate, but they said they couldn’t do anything because ‘it was the weekend’. “I was stunned.” After finally getting home, she was so exhausted she lay down on her daughter’s lawn and slept for two hours. Tracy who is still waiting to get her passport back, added: “It was the most horrible experience.”
Ryanair said: “The crew on this flight searched for this passenger’s lost passport, but it was not there.
“While we regret this passenger’s circumstance, it is beyond our control and is now a matter for the local Spanish authorities.”
The Spanish Civil Guard has not commented on the case.