TUI Airways flight BY49 from Cancun to London Gatwick (Boeing 787-900 registered G-TUIL) was diverted to Bangor International Airport in Maine, U.S., on July 8 after two passengers were reportedly caught twice smoking in the aircraft toilets.
A passenger said the situation became chaotic, with travellers left in limbo for over 20 hours. After landing at 21:30 local time, the two disruptive passengers were removed, but the others remained on board for another five hours, even taxiing for takeoff, before the flight was eventually cancelled due to crew timing limits.
Passengers were then moved to a military section of the airport, where they waited over 15 hours on airbeds until a relief crew arrived from the UK. One passenger described the experience as resembling a “war zone”.
Eventually, the flight landed in Gatwick with a 17-hour delay.
Not quite correct, a person had been smoking in the toilet about an hour of so in to the flight, the captain gave a stern warning regarding this, the aircraft diverted to Bangor about 4 hours in to the flight because a male assaulted a female leaving her with visible injuries, it is thought that the female was the person who was smoking earlier in the flight and that the male and female were known to each other altough they weren’t sat together. The male was lead off the aircraft in handcuffs, the female left the aircraft 15-20 mins later but did not appear to be handcuffed. the Warzone comment was well over the top, most of us didn’t have visas for the US so couldn’t enter the country, we were kept in an immigration lounge and looked after rather well given the circumstances, contary to some reports, were were not detained in a military section of the airport.
Comments are closed.