A pilot asked nearly 300 British passengers to put their hands up if they wished to fly home after he had repaired the aircraft.
The tourists had waited for seven hours at Minorca in Spain while the pilot fixed a faulty warning light on the Boeing 757.
Thirteen refused to fly home on the MyTravel flight back to Leeds-Bradford airport on Friday, a MyTravel spokeswoman confirmed.
The light had indicated the plane was airborne when it was still on the ground.
After repairing it, the plane's captain stood on a chair in the terminal to explain the situation, the Times reports.
Families were apparently told they would have to make their own way home if they refused to fly.
Johnathon McMillan, 36, told the paper his wife Fiona, 34, and six-year-old son, Ross, started crying when a passenger said he feared the plane could crash.
Mr McMillan said he paid £350 for his family to fly home with another airline the next day.
He told the Times: "I've never had to make a decision like that in my life before.
"If the truth be known, we thought it was a decision between life and death.
"The prospect of being in a plane which doesn't know whether it's in the air or on the ground is terrifying."
'Normal procedure'
A MyTravel spokeswoman confirmed 13 out of nearly 300 passengers refused to board the plane, which she admitted was "understandable".
"We had a problem with an indicator in the flight deck which meant a light was on when it should not have been on, she said.
"It is normal procedure for the pilot to be involved in correcting a fault, along with engineers.
"The pilot would never be allowed to fly an aircraft with a technical fault of any nature that would cause a potential danger.
"In this case, he was confident that it was simply an indication error and, once he rectified that, he was happy to take passengers home."
The aircraft landed safely at Leeds-Bradford shortly after
The tourists had waited for seven hours at Minorca in Spain while the pilot fixed a faulty warning light on the Boeing 757.
Thirteen refused to fly home on the MyTravel flight back to Leeds-Bradford airport on Friday, a MyTravel spokeswoman confirmed.
The light had indicated the plane was airborne when it was still on the ground.
After repairing it, the plane's captain stood on a chair in the terminal to explain the situation, the Times reports.
Families were apparently told they would have to make their own way home if they refused to fly.
Johnathon McMillan, 36, told the paper his wife Fiona, 34, and six-year-old son, Ross, started crying when a passenger said he feared the plane could crash.
Mr McMillan said he paid £350 for his family to fly home with another airline the next day.
He told the Times: "I've never had to make a decision like that in my life before.
"If the truth be known, we thought it was a decision between life and death.
"The prospect of being in a plane which doesn't know whether it's in the air or on the ground is terrifying."
'Normal procedure'
A MyTravel spokeswoman confirmed 13 out of nearly 300 passengers refused to board the plane, which she admitted was "understandable".
"We had a problem with an indicator in the flight deck which meant a light was on when it should not have been on, she said.
"It is normal procedure for the pilot to be involved in correcting a fault, along with engineers.
"The pilot would never be allowed to fly an aircraft with a technical fault of any nature that would cause a potential danger.
"In this case, he was confident that it was simply an indication error and, once he rectified that, he was happy to take passengers home."
The aircraft landed safely at Leeds-Bradford shortly after
Comment