Has anyone on this forum ever tried to get off a plane and not been allowed to do so?
I am a reporter at The New York Times. I am writing about an incident last week in which a United Express flight to Dulles was diverted to Richmond, Va., because of bad weather. A passenger wanted to get off there but the crew said no. Eventually the crew decided that the woman was trying to get into the cockpit, and turned her over to police, who called in the FBI.
Anybody had a similar experience?
Matt Wald
[email protected]

I haven't been in a similar situation at all. It is an interesting issue, though.

When arriving at Heathrow a couple weeks ago, there was congestion and we had to go onto the tarmac and onto shuttle buses. But it took 85 minutes for me to get off, and there were still people behind me waiting. Could the airline hold people on the plane indefinitely (as Northwest did for 8 hours or so in that famous Detroit incident)?

details please

http://www.freep.com/money/airtravel/nwa10_20010110.htm

Without knowing the details of this particular incident I will have to assume that the following happened. The plane landed but it did not get a gate assignment (actual jetway or stairs/walk/bus). It might have been in a holding spot, which every airport has, and they were waiting for a clearance to take off. If that was the case then I have to agree with the crew. The ladies need to leave, unless it's a medical emergancy, should not override other passengers need to get to the final destination on time. It's very possible that the pilots were being told the hold is just temporary. If that's the case then I do understand the crews insistance on her staying in the seat. You have to ask yourself a question, what if the plane was circling around the airport for an hour instead?
Again, my theory is based on very limited knowledge of the actual incident, because if they did get a gate assignment then I don't see a problem with letting the lady go, and if they didn't, then the entire incident should be reviewed and the policy changed by the airline.

Matt,

I thought you wrote for the WSJ? New job?
Believe it or not, there is a Matt Wald registered on Flyertalk.

Welcome.

There was an incident a couple of weeks ago at MKE...UA 777 diverted from ORD...kept on tarmac.

Not uncommon - Was on a flight from NRT to EWR, and we were circling for an hour. Finally, on fumes, we put down at a military base about 100 miles from NYC. Weren't allowed off, sat for 3 hours, until theyt figured out how to refuel a 777 (big planes like that don't normally land at military bases, I suppose.)

Eventually we refueled - in Biz Class, they opened the door, allowed us to walk up to the front and breathe some fresh air until they closed it again for takeoff. I wonder how the people in coach felt.

-Peter

Mr. Wald has ever since I have been in the professional world been a NYT reporter and used to cover the energy beat both when I worked on Capitol Hill doing energy issues and later when I was working on state energy efficiency policies.

I have to say, as a result, it always used to help get my calls answered/returned (and only ocassionally avoided) when folks heard Matt Wald was on the line .

Welcome to flyertalk, Matt!

As to the question, I have been the victim of a 6-hour ground-stop, but I had no desire or intention of getting off the plane...

The problem would also be finding that passenger's bag and removing it from the hold.

Given this is for a US paper, i'm not sure how much interest the following would attract, but there was a bmibaby flight in the UK earlier this year that was supposed to be flying from Edinburgh to Nottingham/East Midlands (about a 1hr flight).

However, the same airline had a problem with a plane in Jersey (about a 2hr flight from Edinburgh and right over the top of Nottingham). To collect these passengers the plane was diverted, but they didn't tell the pax until the doors were closed. They refused to let anyone get off the plane, so these folk who should have been on a 1hr flight ended up on a 4hr tour of the British Isles.

The Guardian (amongst other papers) covered this story.

Interestingly, the story goes that once the pilot got wind of what was planned from ops, he declared himself sick, so they had to get another crew member in to fly the plane!

Last summer, actually the Friday evening of Labor Day weekend, after waiting over 4 hours for Atlantic Coast Airways (a Delta regional carrier) to go from EWR to BOS, we pushed back and then were stuck in a long line at the tarmac. This was around 12:15am. The delay was caused by thunderstorms. As we waited longer and longer, the cabin became filled with smoke. We all wanted to get off the plane but the flight attendant said that she had to get to BOS that night so we would stay put. We asked her to notify the pilots but she would not. A bunch of us got on our cell phones to call Delta Customer Service to get help but they wouldn't do anything. After about 15 minutes in this smoke, a woman who was becoming hysterical got up (when she was told not to) and approached the cockpit. Finally the FA notified the captain who apparently had no idea the cabin was filled with smoke. He found out that there was a problem with air conditioning unit but the plane he said was perfectly safe. He asked us, yes he asked us, if we wanted to go back to the gate. We all said yes. He said that we had to wait until a gate opened up and for the fire trucks to arrive before they'd open the doors. People were becoming outraged. We eventually made it back to the terminal and I left immediately. They eventually cancelled that flight after 1:15am.

I like Delta but I'll never fly ACA ever again.

Some discussion here from a few days ago...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=339972

It happened to me once at Heathrow. I wanted to get off, not because I was afraid, but because we were on a lengthy delay and I wanted to switch to a different plane. I was going to LAX and there are many airline choices. I was on United and they had closed the door to the plane. Then they told us they were having a mechanical delay. Knowing UA like I do, I knew this delay would be several hours and they might actually cancel the flight. I called BA on my cell phone and they had space available for me. One door on our plane was opened for some mechanics to enter and I told the FA I wanted to leave. She said I could not and that we were going to leave soon. I said I don't think so, but I waited about an hour and then got up again and tried to leave. The FA said she would talk to someone. We went round and round on this and after about 3 or 4 hours I finally gave up as the mechanics fixed the problem. However, since we were delayed so long, the crew wasn't allowed to work all the way to LA so we had to stop in Washington and get on another plane. It was a huge comedy of errors by United that they never apologized for.

Thats a slightly different case - on diverted International flights, most countried do not allow passengers of (this happened to me in Germany) and I think it is a customs/immigration issue - and also an issue related to ground services - baggage handling, etc. for the diverted carrier.