Yeah, I've wondered about that too. At some point, wouldn't calling 911 be appropriate?

I fully understand the need for pax compliance while in flight. But couldn't a case be made that while on the ground and not taxiing the pax have more rights than while in flight? If they did disobey the crew under the current scenario, their actions would not constitute a danger to the aircraft and then possibly the federal felony law might not apply. Maybe?

After thinking about it for a while I believe I would just stand up and attempt to power-puke in the middle of the isle. If you got a solid release about chest high you should get decent carpet coverage and perhaps some splatter onto adjacent ankles. The hope would be to create a puking domino effect among the other passengers due to the smell and being in such close proximity to the vomit. No one in their right mind would continue to be complacent in those conditions and yakking is perfectly legal and somewhat accepted on an airplane.

Sometimes you just have to break it down to bodily fluids to get your point across.

Quotes like this are what makes Pelican so great...

Best.

Comment.

Ever.

Wow, that might work. Start flopping around on the floor and then wet your pants to top it off. Talk about a scene from a horror movie, 70 some passengers puking and sreaming. That is the stuff nightmares are made of.

No Kidding!! What the hell is happening in our Country? Forget the crew or what the law might be. A plane load of animals (dogs and cats) would have been treated better than those people, but they (the passengers) ALLOWED IT. Stop whining America. It's embarrassing. You folks that sat on that plane, doing nothing, and now want to complain, or better yet hire a lawyer; you're pathetic. The airlines treat their customers like crap, because they can! We allow it. For Christ's sake people, grow some balls. This identity crisis in America is destroying the greatest society on the face of the earth, and to you adults who complain about being stuck on a plane for 6 hours....jeez you deserve it. Hell the loudest whiners probably voted for Obama.

AMEN!!!! I would have been sliding off that trailing edge pretty quick. My Father was "old school" airline (PCA, Capital and UAL)...He said deregulation was one of the worst things that ever happened. I'm sort of glad he's not alive today to see what he worked his ass off for (UAL) has become.

I realize that many things have changed since 9/11, but common sense has been absent for quite a while now.

ain't no way i'de sit in a plane that ain't moving, that long.
Cell phones work, why not call the cops and tell em you are being held hostage?


I would think they can't not respond to such a call
Even more so if they get 40-60 calls like that at the same time...

worst case scenario, they get you of the plane for a debrief... either way, you get off the plane, stat. :D

Yes, I agree with you that this would not have gone on more than a couple of hours before my pax would've been taken off the plane, but then again, I have eighteen years with this company and I will not take no for an answer in cases like this. I am like fingpilot in this case. My pax WILL be taken care of. Then again, I can guarantee you that this would not happen at my company. We've had many, many flights that have started out with the same scenario over the years, yet our dispatchers are not afraid to call it quits eventually - we have good ones.

On your first point, the Captain will NOT be reprimanded in any way by his company because he was likely following protocol to the letter. It really boils down to how his company manages their flights. Bottom line.

Have you seen the Movie "Stand by me" ?

Classic!

+1 Scott.

Beware the Patriot Act. It applies. The no-fly regs come from there. It's permanent. All it takes is an official request and a form from the crew or the airline.

It's a nasty deal. It's meant to be.

Be careful out there.

Let's see, it was a Houston based plane, so it was probably "Express Jet".

Longest delay I've had was a 14-15 hour flight from Paris to Logan, which should have only been 5-6. We actually spent a lot of the extra time in the air. 2+ hours circleing Logan (the captain told us a snowplow broke the ground based landing system, and they had to clear a new runway). Then 2 hours on the ground in Syracuse (yeah, not exactly the next Airport over), then back to Circleing Logan before finally landing.

I see a good lawsuit against Continental coming, and for once I would applaud it!

Now that I would agree with.

It is not Continental, it is Express Jet.

Correct me if I am wrong, but most (if not all) of Express Jet's flying is on behalf of Continental Airlines and as such is flown as Continental Express. I am certainly no lawyer, but I'm going to say that Continental Airlines itself will be sued, as will Express Jet.

Ah, this is why corporations are corporations. I expect Continental to be sued because they have deeper pockets, but I bet they get removed from the suit. It is a code share flight...

Another view from someone who was there. This was the front page of last nights paper:

By Mike Klein

Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

While cooped up in a plane for nine hours, Eleanor Thatcher of Rochester heard the flight attendant offer plenty of reasons why passengers couldn't disembark.

The airport was closed for the night. Buses weren't available to move them.

"It was very upsetting. I was the only one from Rochester, and they (fellow passengers) were saying 'I don't know what kind of airport this is, you can't even get off a plane, and there's no buses available,'" Thatcher said. "I said, 'I don't believe what they're saying.'"

And Thatcher turned out to be correct. After an airline initially blamed the airport for not letting passengers in, airline officials later admitted that a combination of other factors, including weather, refueling and staffing issues, caused them to keep passengers aboard. Rochester airport officials said the passengers could have entered the terminal at any time.

Seven-hour wait

Continental Express Flight 2816 from Houston to Minneapolis, which departed at 9:23 p.m. Saturday, was diverted to Rochester International Airport after hitting bad weather in Minneapolis and spent nearly seven hours sitting on the Rochester tarmac before passengers were allowed to go inside the terminal at 6:30 a.m. Sunday. The incident has received widespread national media coverage as the "nightmare flight" illustrating poor treatment of airline passengers.

Thatcher and her husband, Richard, are owners of Thatcher Pool & Spas, with their son, Brad Thatcher. She was returning from a vacation in the Cayman Islands, going through Houston. Richard had returned a few days earlier.

Thatcher, weary of sitting on the plane, at about 4:30 a.m. called Steve Leqve, the Rochester airport manager whom had been a pupil of her husband's at Mayo High School.

"I said I don't know if you know what's going on, but this is absolutely unbelievable and unacceptable," she told Leqve.

Leqve confirmed that Thatcher's call was the first he heard of the incident, but he said his staff had been handling it well. "Airports do not have the authority to dictate to airlines how they're going to handle their airlines and passengers," he said.

Extreme reports

While the wait was uncomfortable, Thatcher disputed some of the more extreme reports that the plane was smelly, babies ran out of diapers, and that no food or water was available. The plane was stocked with diapers, flight attendants were patrolling the aisles providing pretzels and drinks, and most of the passengers were sleeping during the wait, she said.

The engine was still running and the temperature was comfortable. Thatcher was given ice packs for her sciatica problem, and when she ordered a glass of wine it was given at no charge.

When passengers were allowed off the flight, Thatcher called her son to drive her to her Rochester home. Her husband had to drive back from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, where he had waited all night to pick up his wife.

She arrived home about 7:15 a.m., about the same time as her husband.

Later, she watched the tidal wave of media reports in astonishment.

"I couldn't believe, I absolutely couldn't believe it," she said. "They're really short of news, I guess."