"Nightmare" as 47 Stuck on Tarmac 6 Hours

(CBS)  A routine, three-hour flight from Houston to Minneapolis Friday night turned into what one passenger called a "nightmare," with the cramped plane's 47 passengers stranded on a tarmac for six hours, then spending another three-and-a-half in a terminal before completing their trip.

Adding to the passengers' discomfort -- the smell of the only toilet on board and the sound of crying babies.

Continental Airlines Flight 2816 left Houston at 9:30. Around midnight, the pilot announced the aircraft was being diverted to Rochester, Minn. due to thunderstorms in the Minneapolis area.

When the plane got to Rochester, it stayed on the tarmac -- and stayed, and stayed, and stayed -- with its passengers inside.

"It's not like you're on a [Boeing] 747 and you can walk around,'' Link Christin, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "This was a sardine can, with a single row of seats on one side of the plane and two rows of seats on the other. And they've got about 50 people inside, including babies, for the whole night. It was a nightmare.''

ExpressJet Airlines, which operated the flight for Continental, says airline regulations prevented passengers from getting off the plane, and security screeners had gone home for the night, anyhow. Not only that, says the airline, but efforts to arrange a bus trip failed, and the plane's crew passed the legal limit on hours it could work, so another crew had to be brought in.

Christin says the only food ExpressJet provided was a bag of pretzels and the only drink, one free beverage. What's more, "The smell of the bathroom was getting worse, the smell of the babies was getting worse," he told the newspaper.

"You're almost numb," Christin remarked to CBS News, "because you're so exhausted. So you kind of doze off, but you can't really sleep because babies are crying and the smells are getting worse."

At roughly 6 o'clock in the morning, the passengers were allowed to go into the airport terminal. "Everybody just went out to the Continental counter and they were emotional and they were screaming and they were yelling," Christin recalled for CBS News.

They got back on the plane some three-and-a-half hours later and by then, the toilet was kaput.

The plane landed in Minneapolis at roughly 11 a.m.

ExpressJet issued an apology, saying staff and crew were "ensuring safety and following federal regulations. We will fully investigate the issue, since this does not meet out standards for customer service."

[bill7772]

Most people do not realize that once they board an aircraft, they are OFFICIALLY AND LEGALLY prisoners of the airline. They do NOT have the freedom of choice to get off the plane under any circumstances. Permission to disembark most come from an authoritative source, and it is NOT anyone on the airplane. They have to radio in to get it, usually from someone sitting in an air-conditioned office far away.

[hamiltongrad]

I wonder how many women were on board, usually this is a way to cause female abuse. If the plane was loaded with power ful business men, or army men, there would be no way this would have happened.

Hamiltongrad, 'dvocate for Women

[AllennellA]

BEFORE we talk about time limits--if you want to mandate something(and I do!)--mandate that there be written procedures for getting folks off the plane.

It does no good to have a "time limit" if everyone is still sucking their thumbs wondering what to do when the "time limit" runs out.

AND, in this case, knowledge of the airport's rules by the airline, would have fixed this. I will remember the names Continental and ExpressJet. Their sin HERE was not even bothering to ask the terminal. :-( What jerks!

[YCantWeAllGetAlong]

There is no amount of money you could pay me to get on a plane. Ever. Free vacation to Hawaii? Nope. One of these days, these idiots are going to be faced with a food allergy reaction, failing diabetic or a heart attack and I hope they have to fold. Get the damned people off the flight and into a secure area and call it a day. Losers. I feel sorry for people who fly.

[CBSsense]

By the way, if you go to NPR.org and type into the search engine there something like "Home Is An LAX Parking Lot", you can find (transcript & audio) an amazing account from pilots, along with their outlook for the future of the industry.

[phintel]

I sometimes have nightmares after I read stories like this. I can't stand to be in an enclosed space very long, especially with no fresh air and no ability to move around. However, in my nightmare, I figure out how to get everyone off of the plane within minutes. I tell the plane staff that I've planted a bomb on the plane and that it is set to go off in 20 minutes. They immediately evacuate the plane and have me arrested. I spend the night in jail and then get out with bail. In court, I tell the jury that there was no bomb....it was a strategy I used to get released from captivity. They acquit me and make the airline pay us millions of dollars in punitive damages.

[catherine195]

Hey "Phintel" good answer! All of these folks could have disembarked on their own by opeing one of the emergency doors. H*ll, the flt attendants count on the passengers to be able to do this in an emergency situation - a friend of mine told me that if he were on this flight, he would have helped himself to the emergency door, opened it, and scooted on out - how far from the ground could they have been to not have jumped out and landed two feet to the ground??!! Tell me I can't disembark!!!!

They all must have been pretty smelly from peeing their pants b/c the toilets were overflowing. And what about the flt attendants and pilot, did they all pee in cups? Oh no wait, they all LEFT THE PLANE to make room for the new crew!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah right!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently, it's every woman for herself these days!!!!!!!!!

[jsf14]

On one flight after we'd circled ORD, been diverted to Detroit, then flew back to ORD and started circling again with the threat of a diversion someplace else, a couple of paramedics returning from a conference said that they thought a passenger had appendicitis. Don't know whether she did, but we were on the ground at ORD (our original destination) and off the plane within 10 minutes.

[sholter]

To add to what I said earlier, Northwest/Delta offered to get those passengers off the airplane. Continental/Express declined. The airport has an area which can accommodate 500 people, and they would not have had to be screened again by TSA. Bus trips are easy to schedule. Rochester is used this way often, by other airlines, since it is so close to Minneapolis, and has good facilities. Bus shuttles to Minneapolis happen often, and there is no problem arranging them. This was totally a Continental/Express problem.

Spencer Holter
Rochester, MN

[Wandersonrr]

I recently had a similar experience.
I was on a flight that was delayed and then they kept us on the Tarmac at the takeoff location for hours. Then we circled Chicago indefinitely until we landed in Des Moines for refueling. We were told, well, you can get off here in Des Moines but there are no Hotels, no cars and no connecting flights. Of course, they also had run out of food 5 rows into the passengers because they stocked food for an AM Flight and took off finally around noon. Needless to say, the flight was supposed to take off from Santa Ana around 8:30- and well, we finally got into Chicago at 5-6 PM, after running out of food. Oh and to add insult to injury, I was told, I should have packed better in order to have more snacks since I have a blood sugar condition...and I had a 4 year old. So, Next time I plan on flying this Airline apparently im supposed to pack like Im going into a Nuclear Bunker...oh and they didnt get me a connecting flight, nor did they put me up in a hotel, nor did they pay cab fare, nor have they ever responded and refunded any of the money from the other flight that I had to book with another Airline to get to my final destination. It took me 24 HOURS to get to where I was going since this Airline abandoned me with no options but possibly getting a flight on standby the next day with a 4 year old. ...ooh But they did set up Cots in another wing of the airport...Gee...thanks.

[bobnjersey]

[ExpressJet Airlines, which operated the flight for Continental, says airline regulations prevented passengers from getting off the plane, and security screeners had gone home for the night, anyhow. Not only that, says the airline, but efforts to arrange a bus trip failed, and the plane's crew passed the legal limit on hours it could work, so another crew had to be brought in. ]

there you go ... all that's needed is a legal limit to how long they can disrespect their passengers ... refunds of all ticket prices once the limit is reached.

there won't be a single incident of this happening again once this is in place.

[lp235]

I had a very similar experience about ten years ago, on a Continental flight from CLeveland to Minneapolis. We were diverted to Rochester, Minn, because of a storm. We sat on the tarmac at night for three or four hours because Continental had no crew in Rochester. The toilet was overflowing, and teh flight attendants started passing out free drinks--and then they had to deal with angry people also getting tipsy. At some point they drained the entire stock of liquor. People were told that if they got off the plane, they were on their own. Good luck getting to Minneapolis, which was about 50 miles away. A woman with a baby got off, unable to deal with the situation any more.

We werent' on the tarmac quite as long as this flight, but it was just as horrible because after all that time sitting there, the pilot decided to fly back to Cleveland! (I can't remember why-the storm had already passed). So we spent the night in a crummy hotel about 10 miles from home, then arrived for our vacation in Minneapolis almost exactly 24 hours after we were supposed to.

I wonder if maybe Minneapolis/Rochester is a sore point for Continental for some reason.