Around 70 people were on board the A320 Airbus which took off from Dublin on its way to Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport. Approximately 20 minutes after take-off, an announcement in English advised passengers that the plane was passing through an area of turbulence, and to return to their seats and fasten their seat belts. It was directly followed by another announcement, this time in French.
Relaxed-looking English-speaking passengers smiled at their fellow French travellers and presumed they were listening to the same message. However, this one received a very different response that could not be explained by cultural differences as the French began to scream, shake and cry.
One passenger said that a Frenchman who had been dozing next to him suddenly woke up and looked very startled. "He translated what had been said to me. The message, he said, was that we should prepare for an emergency landing, note where the emergency exits were and await instructions from the captain. As there was turbulence as well I got quite alarmed. The woman behind me was crying. All the French freaked out," he added.
A few agonising minutes later, the cabin crew realised there was something wrong as passengers were wailing. In fact, a steward had simply pressed the wrong pre-recorded message – warning the plane was about to make an emergency landing. The aircraft was over the sea at the time and some passengers believed the plane was about to ditch. "They then went back on the PA system and apologised for playing the wrong announcement in French," the passenger said.
An Aer Lingus spokeswoman confirmed that a pre-recorded message in French about the emergency landing had been accidentally pressed instead of the turbulence warning. "We subsequently clarified this and apologised to our passengers. It is a very unusual occurrence," he said.
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