Passenger who winged it faces £40,000 fine

THE passenger who left a Ryanair plane by opening an emergency exit and climbing on to the wing is unlikely to be able to pay a possible £40,000 fine because he is homeless, it emerged.

Romuald Graczyk, 57, told police he took the drastic step because he was “stressed” at the long wait.

He is understood to have feared he would suffer an asthma attack if he did not get out of the plane as soon as possible after it landed at Malaga Airport.

Mr Graczyk said he felt he had been “pushed to the limit” by a long delay at Stansted Airport and the wait to get off the aircraft after it landed in the Costa del Sol capital.

Miguel Sanchez, Guardia Civil chief at Malaga Airport, said Mr Graczyk could face a £40,000 fine for his air security breach.

But the fine may be difficult to enforce, as it emerged yesterday that Mr Graczyk’s last known address is a homeless hostel.

The Polish national, who is believed to have spent Christmas in Britain, gave police the address of the hostel in Malaga run by Roman Catholic charity Caritas, even though it later emerged he has not been living there for around a year.

He did not supply them with a phone number, meaning that authorities may have problems even finding him when they try to notify him of the fine they have eventually decided on.

Another passenger on Ryanair flight FR8164, which landed late in Malaga just after 11pm on Monday, said Mr Graczyk was suffering an asthma attack and needed air. Raj Mistry, who was sitting next to the man on the plane reportedly said: “He got up all of a sudden and decided to leave. I don’t blame him.”

Fellow passenger Fernando del Valle Villalobos, who got out his phone to record the moment Mr Graczyk exited the packed plane, said: “He told the pilot he had acted the way he did because he felt stressed at having to wait so long inside the plane once we had landed.”

A Ryanair spokesman said: “This airport security breach occurred after landing in Malaga on Jan 1. Airport police arrested the passenger and since this was a breach of Spanish safety regulations, it is being dealt with by Spanish authorities.”