OAKLAND — It turns out, the Aeromexico flight from hell that languished on the Oakland airport tarmac for nearly five hours Thursday as sweaty passengers fainted, cried and screamed for help, could have been avoided.
After Flight 662 was diverted to Oakland from San Francisco because of fog, Oakland International Airport officials quickly offered a gate for the plane to park, but the flight crew turned it down. The pilot told airport officials he planned to keep people aboard, quickly refuel and fly to SFO so the plane could make its return flight to Guadalajara later that afternoon, according to a source familiar with the incident.
The plan backfired — big time.
The Boeing 737 wound up parked on the tarmac for nearly five hours — potentially violating federal passenger rights laws — with conditions inside rapidly deteriorating. With no air conditioning, water or food, passengers cooled each other with magazines, cried, screamed and ate whatever they could find in carry-on bags. As the hours wore on, some phoned 911, passenger advocates, and friends and family desperate to get off the aircraft. Two men were detained after becoming “unruly,” one woman wearing an oxygen mask was helped off the plane, and at least four passengers requested medical aid once they made it off the plane, the source said.
Aeromexico officials did not respond Friday to a request for comment.
Air traffic control discussions with the Aeromexico pilot, reviewed by Bay Area News Group, indicate the flight crew requested help from local authorities about 1:44 p.m. Thursday, saying angry passengers were forming groups and accusing the pilot of lying to them. Copies of 911 tapes of two calls also indicate desperate passengers weighing what punishment they might get for opening the doors and explaining one woman passed out and another was having an anxiety attack.
“I mean how long does it take to just push up the thing and check our passports as we walk off the plane? I mean we’ve got babies on here,” one exasperated man pleaded to an Alameda County dispatcher in a 911 call from the plane. “What’s gonna happen to me when I open the door? I bet it’d be illegal if I left an international flight.”
Another woman also called 911 explaining the dire situation.
“We have someone on this flight who’s passed out. We haven’t been let off this flight for over four hours and they’re not doing anything,” the woman said. “Somebody passed out in the back and there’s another one right by the emergency exit who’s panicking and hyperventilating.”
Meanwhile, the pilot radioed the control tower to express his frustration.
“The passengers are real upset because two hours ago they said that we’re lying to them — that the San Francisco (airport) was never closed,” the pilot explained at the start of a two-minute rant to an air traffic controller.
The pilot explained that two passengers had threatened the crew.
“One in special, that he’s gonna do something if in 10 minutes we do not move the plane,” the pilot said. “He was going to do, I don’t know what and he was going to open doors and just threatened the life of the cabin crew.”
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The incident started with the low fog at San Francisco International Airport earlier Thursday morning. Around 10:15 a.m., a controller working to line up planes at SFO asked the Aeromexico flight about its minimum runway visual range and was told by the pilot that it was 1,800 feet. The fog had dropped visibility down to 1,200 feet and the pilot said he was low on fuel and could not circle until the weather cleared, so he was diverted to Oakland airport, according to air traffic radio recordings.
The plane landed and was offered a gate — which would have provided air conditioning for passengers — but the pilot declined as the plane was scheduled to return to Guadalajara at 12:25 p.m., according to the source. That flight was eventually canceled. The Oakland airport received seven other SFO fog-related diversions Thursday with no problems, the source said.
For husband-and-wife passengers Jaime Quirarte and Erin Morgan, of San Francisco, who were returning from a family visit in Mexico, hearing the real reason the plane did not disembark quickly at Oakland airport left them “speechless.”
“It’s clear they are putting money and business above the health and safety of passengers,” Morgan said. “We were really treated like luggage, not like humans. We’re pretty pissed.”
Even if the plane had pulled up to a gate, it would still have had to wait for customs officials who were not due at the airport until noon, when the first scheduled international flight landed, the source said.
After a couple hours, the crew told Oakland airport officials they expected to be on the ground another two hours before they could take off for San Francisco, the source said, which would eclipse the four-hour maximum set by the Passenger Bill of Rights for international flights at U.S. airports.
The Airport was fully staffed and prepared to accommodate the extraordinary flight and process deplaning passengers, even though Aeromexico was a visiting – not regular – air carrier at Oakland and even though the arrival was unplanned.
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Originally Posted by dannno
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