Katy Platten
Fae Plattan (left) with her mother Katy, father Dean and six-year-old sister Izzy. Facebook

A four-year-old girl suffered a life-threatening allergic attack on a flight home from Tenerife because a fellow passenger ignored repeated warnings not to consume nuts on the plane.

Fae Platten stopped breathing and fell unconscious on the Ryanair flight after a man opened a packet of mixed nuts despite three announcements by cabin crew that there was a severely allergic girl on board.

She went into anaphylactic shock just 20 minutes after her family's holiday flight took off from Tenerife and had to be revived with an injection of adrenaline and taken to hospital for further treatment upon landing in Stansted.

The man, who is thought to be in his 30s or 40s and was travelling with his wife and two teenage children, has been banned from flying with Ryanair for two years. It is believe he was sitting just three or four rows away from the girl.

The Platten family have described him as "incredibly selfish" and say he put Fae's "life in danger".

Fae's mother, Katy Platten, 30, said: "They said there was a child on board with a very severe nut allergy, so no nuts purchased in the airport should be consumed and they would be selling no nuts on the flight."

"But 20 minutes into the flight, Fae said: 'Mummy, my face hurts.' She started scratching her cheeks so I took her to the front and said I think somebody has opened nuts. He was incredibly selfish."

Cabin crew gave Fae a flannel and ice to ease the swelling but her condition quickly deteriorated. Her tongue became swollen, compromising her airway, and she "went unconscious", her mother said.

A call was put out for any medically trained passengers to come forward, and Fae was treated by a nurse and an ambulance driver, who administered the life-saving injection.

She regained consciousness and was taken by ambulance to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford when the plane landed.

Katy Platten posted her account of the ordeal on Facebook, which has been shared by users more than 2,000 times. She says she wants to warn air passengers about nut allergies and the potential for danger when consuming nuts on a plane.