Posted on 08/10/2009 8:25:48 AM PDT by steve-b
ExpressJet Airlines says it's sorry 47 passengers aboard a flight to Minneapolis were forced to spend a night trapped in a grounded plane during the weekend.
Airline spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas told Monday's (Minneapolis) Star Tribune that weather problems at Twin Cities International Airport Friday night forced the pilot of a Houston-to-Minneapolis flight to land in Rochester, Minn., where the regional jet sat on the tarmac for nine hours.
ExpressJet was operating the plane as a Continental Express flight, the newspaper said. ExpressJet's Web site says it flies more than 200 50-passenger Brazilian-made Embraer ERJ145 aircraft for Continental Airlines.
Nicholas told the newspaper that passengers couldn't be let off of the plane and into the terminal due to federal regulations. Security screeners at the Rochester airport had gone home for the night.
"That was not provided as an option by ground services personnel at the airport," she said.
Passenger Link Christin told the Star Tribune being inside the small jet for hours was like being trapped in a "sardine can" with overflowing toilets and crying babies.
"It's not like you're on a (Boeing) 747 and you can walk around," said Christin, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law.
I smell a rat.
The flight in question was a domestic one. Why would security personnel be needed at the destination airport?
I have never been on a domestic airline flight that required security screening at the destination. Every single flight...we were allowed to claim our checked luggage (if any) and head on out.
Just like future health care, Euro version. No doctors on call at night, if you have an emergency, tough it out til 8 a.m.
Absurd!
I would have opened the emergengy hatch and left. Federal regulations be damed.
I’m sorry, but maybe I missed something. I thought Congress passed a “Passenger Bill of Rights” a few years back to keep things like this from happening.
Oh right, Congress passed it. My bad.
(sarcasm off)
I believe I might have had to do something to get kicked off the plane.
I thought there was a federal law against this type of treatment. They could have brought in a stairs and bus and taken them outside the security perimeter. They’re as bad as federal bureaucrats. An apology won’t cut it. I smell a well deserved lawsuit.
“Security screeners at the Rochester airport had gone home for the night. “
wtf? I’ve never been screened coming off a plane
I thought TSA was there to screen to get ONTO the airplane, not off of.
After enduring one small instance of this kind of insanity I made up my mind to pop the chute after no more than two hours of non-improving conditions.
Upon being told that I would have to spend the night in a soup can the two hour limit would be forefit.
Never seen such a stupid thing. The pilots on these hauls don’t even make minimum wage and are the finest Embry Riddle has to offer. I simply don’t understand why anyone takes these jobs.
Why would I want to return to the gates?
Debark from the plane, go get your luggage, and then leave, if it's your final destination.
And if screening was absolutely necessary, then someone should have gone and roused the damn airport security staff from their beds at home.
Sounds positively hellish. Three hours or so is about my capacity on any plane, and by hour 4, I’d have decided prosecution was worth doing something to get off the plane.
There are some very small airlines that fly into airports without having screened passengers. They let them off at a gate outside the regular gates. I have flown one from SE NM to ABQ where the gates are at ground level and screeners one level up. However, I do not know of a large commercial operation that does not have screeners at the departure airport.
“But you wouldn’t be allowed back to the gates without screening without being screened again”
So, they spend the night in the terminal (heaven forbid the airline put them all up in hotel). 9 hrs in the terminal is better than 9 hrs on the plane
Have a kid open the door.
The Regulations only prosecute people who are over age 18 — which is why 18 year old and over sit in the emergency row.
Rochester is less than an hour and a half from the Mpls airport. I’d sooner walk that than sit overnight in that can.
Maybe that's the real reason they kept the passengers in the plane.
They didn't want to put them up in a hotel.
47 passengers on a 50 passenger plane spending 9 hours couped up?? It would be hellish.
This article has a little bit more information. Let the finger-pointing begin.
And if I was on the plane, I would have called 911.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=68496535.blog
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