One other comment... having been diverted once before on a UA flight (ages ago) due to a mechanical. UA also didn't handle that well. I DID however call UA customer relations, got through to a person and told them a mutiny was coming unless someone from management started making some choices on what was going to happen.

In any case, the crew most likely got cornered by the CAA for questioning - as things fresh in the memory are better than questioning crewmembers later. However this is NO excuse for UA to not have an agreement to handle irregular operations.

It seems that the airport operator did the best they could under the conditions of no input from UA until later on.