Flyers stranded at airport for 17 hours due to smoking bozos
Passengers were stranded in a 'warzone' at a Maine airport for over 17 hours after their flight was diverted due to a pair of butt-huffing bozos puffing cigarettes on board.
3 'It was like a warzone in a lounge — rows and rows of beds,' passenger Terry Lawrance said while painting the dismal scene in Bangor, Maine (pictured).
Terry Lawrance / SWNS
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'Everybody was fed up,' UK native Terry Lawrance, 66, told Southwest News Service of the unplanned layover, which occurred July 8 on a TUI Airways flight from Cancun, Mexico, to London, UK.
The aircraft had been flying for about an hour when the pilot came on the intercom and announced that two passengers had been 'smoking in the toilet' and that he'd have to make an unscheduled landing if they persisted, Lawrance recalled.
Unfortunately, the pair refused to desist, prompting the captain to put his money where his mouth was.
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'About three hours later, around the border with Canada and he came on to let us know that the plane was being diverted to Bangor, Maine,' recounted Lawrance.
Tracking data on Flightradar24 depicts the plane turning back towards Maine, right after entering Canadian airspace.
3 The passengers continued smoking despite a warning from the pilot.
Evgenia Parajanian – stock.adobe.com
They landed around 9:30 p.m. that evening, after which the two smokers were escorted off the plane. 'They were obviously drunk, and he basically assaulted his partner,' recalled Lawrance.
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The pilot said they'd be on their way after some paperwork was done, not knowing that their short pitstop would turn into the layover from hell.
'We were sat on the plane on the ground for five hours — the plane started taxing again and we thought 'great' and then they said there was a problem with flight plan, and we have to get off,' he said. 'Next thing, we're not going anywhere.'
3 'It was like free-for-all for vultures,' said Lawrance (pictured).
Terry Lawrance / SWNS
According to Lawrance, the original crew had to deplane as they couldn't work the rest of the leg back to Gatwick as they'd be exceeding their legal working hours.
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As a result, a relief flight had to be dispatched from the UK to the US to ferry them to their destination.
That's when 'it all went pear-shaped,' the traveler recalled.
The passengers subsequently had to disembark and stay in a cramped lounge — which Lawrance believed was the military airbase section of the airport — while waiting for the relief flight to arrive.
'It was like free-for-all for vultures,' Lawrance said, describing their temporary digs. 'It was like a warzone in a lounge — rows and rows of beds.'
He added, 'All our luggage was still on the plane whilst we waited.'
Accompanying footage shows the stranded passengers lying side by side on mattresses like a scene out of a refugee camp.
'We were there for over 12 hours,' Lawrance lamented. 'We waited six or seven hours before we were offered a drink.'
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It wasn't until 3 p.m. the next day that they finally departed — a harrowing 17 and a half hours since they'd touched down in Maine.
Thankfully, all the passengers arrived safely in London.
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