Cleaner’s missing can grounds Air Malta plane at Marseille

Marseille Airport security officers panicked when a cleaner reported that a spray can he had been using had vanished from his trolley, so they offloaded passengers on an Air Malta flight in search of the missing cleaning aerosol, delaying the flight by an hour.

The incident occurred on Sunday at about midnight and involved KM 437, Air Malta flight from Marseille to Malta.

Upon closing the aircraft’s doors the captain was informed about what the French authorities described as a “suspected security breach”, just as the plane was about to start taxiing to the runway.

At the time the captain was not told that what was missing was an aerosol cleaning agent which could be inflammable. The airport security asked to recheck the airline’s passengers, suspecting that one of them had taken it onto the plane after pinching it from the cleaner’s trolley close to the embarkation gate. The engines were turned off and passengers told to disembark and proceed to the airport security section again, where they were frisked and had their hand luggage checked again.

In the meantime, the cabin crew searched the aircraft cabin for the missing can. Both searches proved negative and the flight was allowed to leave an hour late. It has not yet been established whether the can was eventually found.

An airline spokesman confirmed that the flight had been delayed for an hour because of this “suspected security breach”. He said Air Malta took no chances with safety and took the matter seriously.

“Safety is the number one priority at Air Malta and the airline takes such threats very seriously. It apologises for any inconvenience caused to passengers due to circumstance beyond its control,” the airline spokesman said.