My wife was flying CO from IAH to SJC about year ago. Her flight was diverted to PHX because of an "air conditioning problem." She said that they announced on the plane that they were going to stop and have the "compressor checked." As I sat waiting to pick her up at SJC, the gate agent said the flight was delayed and would arrive in about 2 hours. I called Continental from a payphone and an agent told me that the plane had been diverted to PHX because it was "leaking fuel" and wouldn't have enough fuel to make it to SJC.

According to my wife, the plane landed in PHX, no one boarded or disembarked. "Some mechanics worked on it," and the plane took off about 45 minutes later and flew on to SJC.

Weird, eh? I wouldn't imagine that the plane diverted to ORD simply because it was "low on fuel."

-levi