Passengers on an international flight from Thailand spent more than six hours stranded on the plane at Alice Springs Airport after being forced to land due to a medical emergency.
Jetstar flight JQ30, operated by Boeing 787-8 registered VH-VKB,was flying from Bangkok to Melbourne when it was forced to land at the domestic airport of Alice Springs around 07:20 (ACST) on Sunday. While the plane was on the runway an electrical fault was detected which necessitated obtaining a spare part from Sydney.
The passengers were stuck on the plane for nearly seven hours as Jetstar tried to get clearance to disembark.
“As a domestic airport, Alice Springs does not have a customs processing facility and we have been working with border agencies, Northern Territories Police and the local airport authority on how best to support customers until the arrival of the replacement aircraft,” a spokesperson said on Sunday.
As the plane suffered from air conditioning issues and the on-screen entertainment was turned off, the atmosphere on board was getting “a bit crazy,” said a passenger as everybody waited to get off the plane.
Passengers were finally given the option to disembark “in a specially divided section of the airport” around 14:15 Sunday, awaiting the arrival of a replacement plane.
