Alton Towers crash amputee Leah Washington caught in air traffic chaos as she returns from hen party
Thousands of travellers saw their flights cancelled amid the air traffic chaos yesterday.
As holidaymakers arrived at the airport to make their way home following the bank holiday, many were told they would be going nowhere.
A 'technical issue' caused countless planes to be grounded, with flights in and out of the UK put on hold.
Speaking to LADbible, the National Air Traffic Controller Service (NATS) said: "We are currently experiencing a technical issue and have applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety. Engineers are working to find and fix the fault.
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"We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
"Please check with your airline on the status of your flight. We will provide updates on www.nats.aero for the latest news and on X - @NATS.
"To be clear, UK airspace is not closed, we have had to apply air traffic flow restrictions which ensures we can maintain safety."
Fortunately, the issue was eventually fixed, but as you can imagine, it was absolute carnage at the airports.
And one of those caught up in it was Leah Washington, the young woman who was involved in an accident at Alton Towers back in 2015.
Last year, she and partner Joe Pugh, who was also injured in the crash, announced they were engaged.
And this weekend, Leah and a bunch of her mates jetted off to Portugal for her hen do.
However, like many, when they got to the airport for their return flight, Leah, from Barnsley, and her mates were told that their flight was cancelled.
Sharing a snap from the airport to her Instagram page, Leah wrote: "Cancelled flight to end the hen party."
Less than ideal.
But while Leah and her friends seemed to take the news in good spirit, elsewhere, tempers flared.
A group of Ryanair passengers stuck on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria took up the issue with airport staff.
Footage of heated discussions between passengers and airport staff has emerged on the internet, including clips of passengers saying Ryanair had an obligation 'to get us back home'.
They said they'd been given the advice to book alternate travel with another airline and then claim the money back from Ryanair, but argued that 'you will not get that money back, I promise you'.
Among the thousands of passengers stuck at an airport and not able to make it home was also TV presenter Gabby Logan.
She was on her way home from covering the women's World Cup in Australia, and kept her followers updated with her travel problems.
So count yourselves lucky you didn't jet off on a bank holiday break, eh?
Dominic Smithers