Several passengers on a JetBlue flight endured a nightmare yesterday. After a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Newark was diverted to Hartford, it was stuck on the tarmac for seven hours.
The nightmare began when the flight could not land at Newark International Airport after descending low enough for the passengers to see that the visibility was zero. After circling the airport in New Jersey, the plane eventually flew to Bradley and landed before 2 p.m., passengers said.
Once it landed, the plane didn't move again until 9 pm. During that time, the passengers were left without food, water or working bathrooms. At one point, a paraplegic had trouble getting circulation to his legs and had to be taken off the plane by firefighters.
One of the passengers was Andrew Carter, who covers the Dolphins for the Sun Sentinel.
“We ran out of water,’’ he said via cellphone from onboard the plane. “The bathrooms are all clogged up and disgusting. The power would go off every 45 minutes or so for five minutes or so, and that would freak people out. … I’ve heard about these kind of stories.’’
In a statement, JetBlue blamed the problem on intermittent power outages at Bradley, as well as five other flights diverted there. It also promised to reimburse passengers for the cost of their tickets. Still, this isn't the first time a JetBlue flight's been stranded--back in 2007, four JetBlue planes were stranded at JFK for nine hours.
JetBlue could be in hot water with the Department of Transportation. Last year, it passed new rules which bar passenger aircraft from staying on the tarmac for more than three hours with passengers aboard.