Frank Gardner: ‘Crawling to my wheelchair was my only way off the plane’

Disabled people have been sharing stories about the difficulties using wheelchairs on planes after a tweet by the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner.

Frank, who’s used a wheelchair since he was shot in Saudi Arabia, posted a selfie of himself stranded on a plane because special assistance staff didn’t turn up.

The incident happened at Gatwick, but he said he had a more serious experience at a German airport.

“They took so long to turn up with the high-lift, I didn’t want to miss my connection,” he said.

“I had to power myself using purely my arms, to zig-zag up seven rows of armrests to get to my wheelchair, and I crawled along the floor to get onto it. That was the only way I was going to get on that plane.”

5 live is still waiting for a response from Easyjet and OCS, the company that provides special assistance at Gatwick.

This clip is originally from 5 live Breakfast on Tuesday 10 January 2017.