Passengers on a United Airlines flight from Newark Liberty International Airport were grounded in at the Goose Bay Airport in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada for 16 hours in temperatures that fell to “uncomfortable” levels.
The grounding occurred due to a medical emergency, but cold temperatures caused a door to malfunction, the airline told CBC, which prevented taking off again.
“I think there was miscommunication between ground crew at Goose Bay and the people running flights ops in Chicago,” one passenger, Liam Keefe, told ABC News. “At the end of the day, the guy probably would have died if we didn’t divert. That was the reason we were stuck for a long time.”
Temperatures in the city had dropped below -30 degrees Celsius, or -22 degrees Fahrenheit. The passengers, who were ultimately flying to Hong Kong, couldn’t leave the plane because customs officers were not available overnight.
“The airport did not have customs officers overnight so we were not able to let customers depart the aircraft. An alternative aircraft is being flown in to transport customers back to Newark,” the airline said in a statement to ABC News. “We apologize to our customers and our crew is doing everything possible to assist them during the delay.”
About 250 passengers plus crew members were stuck on the plane, with little communication from the airline about what was going on or when they would be freed. Passenger Sonjay Dutt, a professional wrestler, told CBC the crew handed out blankets for freezing passengers, but couldn’t do much else. After 10 hours, Dutt began tweeting about the experience, calling the situation an “emergency” and saying that people were “not doing well” and “running low on food.”
He added later that the airline pilot gave passengers the email for United’s CEO to complain. About 20 minutes later, Dutt said airport officials brought passengers Tim Hortons snacks and water.
ABC News reports that passengers had to sleep on the plane, with some saying they spent as much as 18 hours on the plane, though United could not confirm the exact time.
One passenger told ABC that when the rescue plane came for them, after about 12 hours, they did not have food for the stranded passengers, “only snacks like pretzels.” The rescue plane returned the passengers to Newark, New Jersey, on Sunday evening. United told ABC the original flight left Newark at 3:03 p.m. EST Saturday and returned to the same airport (remember, the original destination was Hong Kong) with the same passengers at 5:44 p.m. EST on Sunday.
A non-stop flight from Newark to Hong Kong should be around 16 hours, or about how long the passengers were stranded on the flight in Canada.