Disabled BBC correspondent Frank Gardner fumes after being left on easyJet plane at Gatwick Airport for an hour
The journalist blasted the appalling treatment he received from OCS Assist, the firm which organises wheelchairs and other assistance for passengers with disabilities
THE BBC’S partly paralysed Security Correspondent was left stuck on a plane when an airport failed to provide special assistance for at least an hour.
Frank Gardner OBE shamed Gatwick Airport with a photograph of him waiting on the easyJet plane alone while the rest of the passengers were already off and heading home.
The 55-year-old is unable to walk without a wheelchair or frame after being shot six times in an attack by al-Qaeda sympathisers 12 years ago.
Journalist Gardner blasted the appalling treatment he received from OCS Assist – the firm which organises wheelchairs and other assistance for passengers with disabilities.
He tweeted: “Once more stuck on empty plane at Gatwick Airport after all passengers off and heading home as special assistance have failed to turn up.”
The frustrated reporter later wrote: “Dear @Gatwick_Airport @easyJet @Ocs_Assist Your failure to get disabled pax promptly off planes even AFTER all others r off is inexcusable.”
He later photographed the airbridge in the near distance which could have been used to help him off the plane but apparently is not the airline’s “policy”, according to Gardner.
“Unused airbridge sitting 8m away but easyjet won’t use it,” he added.
It took at least an hour of continuously ringing OCS Assist for him to be helped off the plane.
He tweeted: “Yep I’m off plane but still fuming. This is UK in 2017 ffs.”
Mr Gardner later told his followers that all three firms were now investigating his complaint but pointed out that under EU regulations it is down the airport to provide passengers with a safe exit from the plane.
He tweeted: "Pleased to say that @Gatwick_Airport @easyJet and @Ocs_Assist hv all responded + r investigating how to stop disabled pax stranded onboard"
EasyJet later tweeted the journalist: “Hi Frank, we’re sorry to hear about the delayed service of the airport special assistance provider.”
It was in 2004 that he was shot multiple times while with his Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers, who did not survive the brutal attack in Saudi Arabia.
The bullets missed most of Gardner’s vital organs but hit his spinal nerves, leaving him partly paralysed in his legs.
After 14 operations, seven months in hospital and months of rehabilitation he returned to the national broadcaster.
A year later at the Queen’s Birthday Honours he was awarded his OBE for services to journalism.
It comes just after a Paralympian revealed that she wet herself on a train because the disabled toilet was out of order.
Anne Wafula Strike said she was 'robbed of her dignity' after the incident, which shows how "too many people with disabilities suffer in silence".
In November a disabled dad suffered a similar humiliation on a Ryanair flight.
Neil Boffey was dragged down the aisle in front of hundreds of fellow passengers on a flight from Barcelona to Manchester despite requesting special boarding.
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