Adelaide-based disability advocate Shane Hryhorec was offloaded from a Virgin Australia flight from Sydney to Adelaide after cabin crew told him his wheelchair’s power-assist device, known as a SmartDrive, could not be stored in the overhead locker and had to fit under his seat instead. The problem: there was no room under his seat to put it.
Hryhorec, who has flown roughly 300 flights over the past 15 years and travels with his service dog Whitney, said the SmartDrive has always traveled in the overhead bin without issue, including on four flights in the seven days before this one. On this flight, he was seated at a bulkhead row with no legroom in front of him, and Whitney, who he described as a large golden retriever, filled the window seat beside him.
Hryhorec said the situation escalated quickly. When he told a crew member he had taken four flights in the previous week with the same device stowed overhead, he said the staff member’s first response was to accuse him of lying. He offered to put the device under a seat if there had been space, but the video he recorded and later posted shows there was none.
One staff member suggested moving the SmartDrive to an empty seat near the back of the plane. Hryhorec said a supervisor then overruled that option, telling him it was either under his own seat or he would not be flying. With no other option available, he was taken off the flight, transferred into an aisle chair, and rolled past roughly 200 seated passengers with Whitney at his side. Crew members had already announced over the PA system that the flight was being delayed while a passenger was offloaded.
“I was treated like a burden, a second class citizen,” Hryhorec said, adding that he felt the airline did not want people with disabilities on board that day.
After he was off the plane, a Virgin Australia customer care representative he identified as Jenna asked whether he had been filming, then asked him to delete the footage. He said he refused. The video was posted within hours and had drawn close to eight million views by the time Hryhorec spoke about the incident publicly the next morning.
Hryhorec said the device is well within airline lithium battery limits, rated at roughly 150 watt-hours against a 300 watt-hour carry-on threshold. He pointed to what he described as a recently introduced rule around SmartDrive stowage, one that had not been enforced on any of his prior flights that week. When he raised the inconsistency with crew, he said he was told the earlier flights had simply broken the rules, a response he found difficult to accept given he had no way of knowing that in advance.
Hryhorec eventually rebooked onto a flight five hours later and was seated in a row without a bulkhead. He shared a photo showing that even with the extra space, the SmartDrive in its bag under the seat consumed the entire footwell. At six feet tall, he said losing that space caused real discomfort, including cramping and spasticity, both common concerns for wheelchair users forced to travel without adequate legroom.
Virgin Australia later issued a statement saying it remains committed to providing an accessible and inclusive experience for all guests and that the safety of guests and crew is its highest priority. The airline said it was reviewing the circumstances of the flight to determine whether seating and stowage requirements could be better identified in advance, and how crew could better support passengers in similar situations. The airline confirmed it had reached out to Hryhorec directly.
Hryhorec confirmed he had missed a call from Virgin Australia and planned to return it. As of the following morning, he said he had not received a direct apology, though the airline had apologized to the other passengers on his original flight for the delay his removal caused.
Reaction to the video has been mixed. Many commenters backed Hryhorec, with one calling the crew’s handling of the situation discriminatory and asking why no other passenger stepped in to help. Others pointed to a since-shared account suggesting Hryhorec had been offered multiple alternatives and was uncooperative, though the footage itself shows the back-row seat option being offered and then withdrawn by a supervisor.
Hryhorec said he sees his role less as someone unusually unlucky and more as someone willing to speak up. Wheelchair users navigating power-assist devices at 30,000 feet, he said, run into problems like this constantly. Most of the time, nobody is filming.
This piece is based on radio interview audio; TWIA has not independently verified the flight number, exact incident date, or all details beyond what Hryhorec and Virgin Australia have stated publicly. We’ll update if more details or an official DOT-equivalent (Australian) response emerges.
