47 Passengers, Including Two Babies, Trapped On Continental Flight For 11 Hours
When will airlines realize that when a flight gets diverted and things go wrong — you just should not force people to stay on an airplane for 11 hours with only a bag of pretzels to eat. What was ExpressJet's (operator of the Continental flight) excuse? The TSA screeners had gone home for the night, so they couldn't let anyone get back on the plane if they let them off. Oh no!
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says that the horror story started when a flight from Houston to Minneapolis was diverted to Rochester because of severe weather. In case you're not awesome at MN geography, Rochester is only about 80 miles from the Minneapolis airport.
At this point the flight crew apparently hit its limit on flying time, and a new crew was needed. The company says it refused to let the passengers off the plane because the TSA screeners had left and "passengers legally couldn't get back on the plane."
KARE 11 interviewed a passenger who describes the scene on the plane:
"Everybody in the plane was kind-of moving, trying to find positions to sleep in," Christin said. "There wasn't any room, the plane was getting warmer."
Christin says at least two babies were on board and they cried throuhgout the night.
"The smells were getting worse, the bathroom was getting worse," he says. "The babies had obviously started going to the bathroom."
He also says that no one offered the passengers any food after landing in Rochester.
The airline says the airport didn't have enough personnel to allow people to sleep in the terminal and claims that they tried to find a bus but failed to locate one. In all the passengers boarded the plane at 7:30pm, waiting two hours to take off, then were not allowed to get off the plane until 6:30am the following morning. At 9:30am they reboarded the plane and finally arrived at their destination at around 11am.
Nightmare flight [USAToday]
47 passengers spend night on airplane [KARE 11]
47 trapped on 'nightmare' flight to the Twin Cities [MST]
(Photo:spinadelic)
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Comments:
Why are things like this still happening?
I almost forgot...because if you dare to stand up for your rights as a human being and not put up with being trapped on a grounded plane you'll be accused of "committing terrorist acts" and wind up in jail and put on the do-no-fly list blah blah blah.
This is the time when you simply say "I have lost confidence in the ability of this airline and this plane to deliver me safely to my destination. I need to get off now." pull out cellphone and contact all the local media to the story... "passengers held hostage by airline and TSA."
Actually, screw the airlines, take the train, bus, personal car...
Man, I would have started having "heart palpitations" and "trouble breathing" LONG before those 20 hours were up. Of course once off the plane, I'd probably have had an amazing recovery. Such is the healing powers of the airport!
@outlulz: 911 might not be able to help, but calling reporters to the scene ought to have at least some effect. The airline and the airport wouldn't be too happy to have reporters nosing around and asking questions like, "Do you have a planeful of people imprisoned on your tarmac? When are you planning to release them from custody?"
Just curious, what would happen if someone opened one of the doors, or smoked in the lavatory? Would they let you off the plane then?
I detect a feeling among the airline that nothing was really wrong with what happened. Only after this hits the major news outlets will they be somewhat repentant.
I think at about hour 4 or 5 (depending on when my iPod ran out of juice) I'd be willing to risk the jail time by interfering with the flight attendants if it meant they would call the cops to take me off the flight.
That's very special. I love how airlines hide behind minor safety rules (lack of TSA personnel, too much flight time), in order to ignore major risks to passenger safety (dehydration, illness, heat stroke, etc).
Seriously? You're telling me that because of the risk that some terrorist took advantage of the unexpected diversion to contact his local terrorist buddy to bring him a weapon to smuggle onto the plane because they lucked out and the TSA had gone home for the evening? Sure.
What you're really saying is that you've gotten so wrapped up in the rules that you can't bend them just once to save 47 people from 20 hours of misery. I know, you might lose your job. But given the choice between losing my job and losing my humanity, I'll take the former, thank you.
After taking a Dash-8 turbo prop down to NC recently, I'm hoping their plane was bigger than ours. As for this plane, I do know that as soon as that plane started getting warm, my claustrophobia would have started kicking in as people were using up all the oxygen with their giant horse nostrils! I'm OK as longa s the Co2 levels and/or temp don't start rising. When they do, I get panicky.
But seriously, couldn't they have extended the jet way and let them stay in THAT? I doubt if they were diverted that the terrorist network had planned for that and would shift operations to the new airport. At least with the jet way, there's one way in and out, and can be easily secured with a chair on the outside under the knob. There would be room to walk around, which is vital to combat DVT, which CAN and DOES kill.
@SeattleTed is proud to like Robert Zimmerman: Unfortunately, they'll let you off the plane in the company of nice armed officers. That may end up helping the rest of the people on the plane, but you'd have to be willing to throw yourself on the grenade.
@PsiCop: If it happened during sweeps you could guarantee one of those "hard hitting" interviews where they chase a American Airlines employee with a camera as he covers his face.
I'm not sure I see where the 20 hours comes from. According to the article, they were there for 9 hours.
"For passenger Link Christin, Rochester International Airport was an unexpected nine-hour pitstop Friday night -- and six of those hours were spent stuck on a plane."
@outlulz: Unfortunately, that will only work if the captain has allowed cellphone and electronics to be used.
/ducks
@floraposte: Smoking DT's are dangerous. Just hope you get the judge with the nicotine stains, and filibuster like Peggy Hill did during the lo-flo toilet debate, to make him fold.
I don't think I'd care that I couldn't get back on the airplane. Just let me off the plane, and when TSA security screeners come back the next day, book me a new flight.
These people were not thinking clearly.
@Esquire99: Yes, I was just noticing that myself--neither of the source articles has 20 hours as the time. Even if you add the actual travel time, I don't see getting from 6 hours to 20.
I was stuck on a plane once for several hours on the tarmac and as time goes by, the crew reassures you that they're working on getting the situation resolved. They keep you thinking that at any moment, you will start moving again. And you just KNOW that if you call the local news crews that they will arrest you or fine you or something for using your phone in the plane with the door closed. So you sit and wait, and wait and wait hoping that it can't possible last any longer and yet it does. And as soon as you've had enough and reach for your phone, the pilot comes back on to tell you that the new crew should be there in about 30 minutes and then you can get going. An hour later, the new screw isn't there, so you reach for your phone and the pilot comes back on and says that they arrived and are on their way to the plane. An hour later you reach for your phone and they open the door and the crew shows up. Everyone claps and cheers! An hour later you want to know why we haven't taken off yet. They tell you that they had to do pre-flight checks. An hour later they tell you that the tower is trying to find a slot for them to take off in. And this goes on and on and on keeping you sated long enough to not bitch about it.
I would've started an uprising! No airline has the right to keep passengers against their will - that's kidnapping or something very much like it. I know I would probably have been arrested, but damn if some corporate policy is going to imprison me and my family for 20 hours on a flying cess-pool. Arrest me and let me have my day in court where I'll sue the airline for all sorts of damages. Imagine being the parent of one of those babies? That's endangering the welfare of an infant. Despicable.
Why, exactly, would the TSA have to be involved with people getting OFF the plane? I understand that they might not be able to let them back on without the TSA being there (stupid, but I understand). But to let them off? They couldn't even let them go sit in the terminal, go to a hotel, or call someone to drive the hour and come pick them up?
The best line of the article is actually on page two:
"...passenger safety and the legal requirements of airlines were top priorities."
I'd hate to see what an airline that doesn't care about those two things does to its passengers.
@rpm773: Well, I doubt the avionics could be jammed and cause a crash when you are already sitting on the tarmac, unless it caused the landing gear to retract. ;D
First time poster, I just wanted to take this chance to say that this is why I'm really losing faith in the Consumerist. Sure, 20 hours stuck on a plane is a better story, but in reality it was 6 hours. Six hours is still a horrible ordeal to go through. It doesn't need to be exaggerated and embellished. Making up outrageous lies like those contained in this post does not help consumers at all.
"The company says it refused to let the passengers off the plane because the TSA screeners had left and "passengers legally couldn't get back on the plane.""
I don't get it. You can legally get off a plane go to a different one and board it in the same terminal without going through a security check again. How would this be any different as long as they didn't leave the "secured" area of the terminal?
1.Why couldn't they have let them into the terminal but told them that if they went past the security check points they would not be able to re-board the flight.
2. 20 hours? Seriously? There were no TSA employees at the airport for 20 hours? Is this airport only open like 4 hours a day? Even subtracting the flight time from Houston to Rochester, that's something like 14-16 hours on the ground on the plane in Rochester. No TSA employees there to re-screen them in that time period? I call shenanigans. Am I missing something here?
Something doesn't seem right here: first, TSA would surely have come back on duty within the 20 hours. Second, if I have to transfer from one plane to another, I do not have to go through another security check as long as I stay within the same gate area. Why couldn't the airline call this an "equipment change" and allow the passengers back into the waiting area with a warning not to wander outside the secure area?
There is no explanation except a callous lack of concern for their passengers' health.
@floraposte: It appears the 20 hours was the entirety of flight, from takeoff in Houston to destination in Minneapolis. Poor reporting.
"Failed to locate one?" Last time I checked, busses are wheeled vehicles which can basically go where you need them to. Just sayin.'
@milrtime83: My question as well. I don't buy the airline's excuse, and I think it's more likely it has something to do with not wanting to pay for hotels for the night or something.
20 Hours with no food? Sorry, that's when I force my way off the damned plane and file charges for unlawful detainment.
@johnva: According to the linked articles, the airport grounds crew did not offer to open up the airport because there were not enough employees. Someone should have been on the horn to manaagement!
@milrtime83: No one was securing the secured area of the terminal. Kinda scary, if you think about it.
@erratapage:
I'm pretty sure it doesn't take 11 hours to fly from Houston to Minneapolis. I could make that flight in a Cessna 172 in less than 11 hours.
What is it going to take for the federal government to add a hardline law that states if you're in a grounded plane more than (3? 4?) hours, that plane MUST allow the passengers to return to the terminal. It won't solve all the problems - such as getting stranded on the ground after the airport has started to shut down for the night - but at least you won't be cooped up in an overheated tin can with insufficient basic needs such as drinking water and working toilets.
Or how long before a plane full of passengers form a multi-million dollar class action suit to get folks' attention? 47 passengers at $1mil in profit per passenger, I think they should sue for $150mil. That should pay off the court and lawyer fees, while leaving a good chunk for each passenger.
Of course, this will just lead to the airline jacking its prices, creating more fees, cutting its services, and then having more super-fail-flights like this due to reduced staffing which will in turn lead to more lawsuits...
Bah, let the idiots get sued out of oblivion already.
I am surprised the mothers/fathers of the babies didn't raise hell.
I am sure they didn't carry on enough baby supplies for 20 hours. If my baby (assuming I had one) was crying for 20 hours because it was hungry/needed to be changed/was overheated/cranky, I would be FREAKING out.
"Get these motherf'in passengers off my motherf'in plane!" - Samuel L. Jackson, waiting at Terminal C for his flight.
@zentex: Your rights are restricted every time you get on a plane. Would you allow the government to search your body and possesions every time you walk to your driveway to get into your car?
@erratapage: Ahh, I missed that line while reading through. So it sounds like the TSA thing is nothing more than an excuse for a different problem.
Freaking unacceptable. Why is it, again, that you can't file charges for illegal imprisonment or whatever?
Why can't ExpressJet (or any human being with two brain cells to rub together), call up some TSA employees, yes even in the middle of the night, to get this taken care of?
Surely someone is on-call in case of emergencies, and this qualified.
@erratapage: That's what I was thinking. I'm sure that there were plenty of people who'd rather have to come back later or find another way to get to where they were going if it meant being able to get off of the plane.
@Esquire99: I think there's a little more explanation in this USA Today article: [www.usatoday.com]
That seems to be suggesting that the passengers arrived in MSP 14 hours after their takeoff time the previous night (the flight, which generally takes just under 3 hours, left on time at 9 p.m. or so). I think somebody here probably got confused and added that to the 6-hour figure and came up with 20.
The article also has an interesting suggestion that tension with Delta, which has a routing to Rochester while Continental doesn't, may have been a factor as well.
@outlulz: I suspect Continental has some serious legal explaining to do. False imprisonment is a felony, and requiring someone on terra firma to remain on an airplane for 20 hours is definitely imprisonment.
Also, I would bet that there are 47 lawsuits filed as a result of this.
Go Continental! Way to piss off 47 more customers!
@erratapage: It's even worse because the airport is all of a hour drive from Minneapolis, and 45 minutes for the old NWA headquarters in Eagan. They couldn't have gotten employees from anywhere to play babysitter even?
Another shining example of why there needs to be a Passenger Bill of Rights that the Airlines have to adhere to so people like this aren't put through this kind of abuse.
Oh this is profanity stupid.
Somebody had a brain fart and then everything went to hell in a small plane.
I can imagine how it all started... plane was suppose to briefly stay on the ground while the bad weather passed over Minneapolis. Maybe 1 hour on the ground (planned time). Being on the ground is better than flying around during bad weather.
Then 1 hour became 2 hours.
And shift change at the airlines.
And the persons of responsibility (being big shot execs) only work the day light hours.... so nobody is home at the airline with the company credit card to hire a farking bus to take the passengers to Minneapolis.
And the minions at the airline couldn't bother to look after the passengers because "it didn't happen on my shift".
Oh this farking stupid.
IF this story is even half true, I want some people fired.
@Nakko: I can get my pediatrician on the line in the middle of the night, a vet to see my dog, a prescription filled, groceries purchased, a taco, and get myself completely inebriated, but there isn't anyone available to get people off an airplane?
think i prefer my no fly lifestyle.
@Sudonum: There were no security checkpoints at this juncture--the entire airport was technically unsecured.
And no, it wasn't 20 hours without TSA, it was just that the TSA goes home at night from a small airport that has no more scheduled flights for the day. So no TSA when the plane landed, but they came in at 6:30 or so, which is when they let the passengers off the airplane.
Not that it doesn't suck, just that the numbers are making things a little confusing.
@morgasco: Going back, I guess the NWA/Continental/Their Operators ties probably aren't strong enough for them to get any non Express Jet employee's out there.
That's when you call all of the local news stations from your cell phone and then call 911.