Plane Diverted To PBI, Pax Held Onboard

It was a perfect storm, of sorts... as nearly everything that could go wrong onboard American Airlines 1908 -- a flight from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti to Miami -- did. The resulting fiasco kept 145 passengers onboard an Airbus A300 for 10 hours Sunday, and into the wee hours of Monday morning.

Speaking of storms, it was a line of strong thunderstorms in South Florida that kept the plane from landing in Miami as scheduled Sunday night. That delay came after the plane left Port-au-Prince nearly 30 minutes late... starting a domino effect of bad luck.

First, the flight was diverted to Fort Lauderdale... but weather meant the plane couldn't land there, either. The Miami Herald reports the plane was then sent to Palm Beach International Airport.

The airliner touched down at PBI at 8:52 pm local time... over three-and-one-half hours after it left Haiti. As it turns out, however, that was only the beginning... as passengers were held onboard the plane, due to Customs issues. The Customs and Border Protection office at PBI had closed at 5 pm.

Shortly after the plane landed, American called CBP to request that an ill passenger be deplaned, said CBP special agent and spokesman Zachary Mann. An agency officer met the plane, and allowed paramedics to offload the passenger.

But the rest of the passengers were kept onboard the plane... and CBP is at a loss to explain why American didn't ask for special processing for everyone onboard.

"If we had been requested to process the plane, we would have been able to work with the airline and respond to that," Mann said, adding Customs assumed the airliner had been able to takeoff again... until paramedics advised the agency a second, pregnant passenger needed to be removed from the plane. That call came over four hours after Flight 1908 landed, the Herald reports -- around 1 am Monday morning.

"In this whole process, it was our belief and our hope that the flight would leave earlier," American spokeswoman Martha Pantín explained. "That is why we did not call Customs."

While the plane sat on the tarmac at PBI, a new flight crew was also brought in... as the original flight crew ran out of duty time. Finally, at 1:14 am, the plane departed Palm Beach, heading once again for Miami. The flight arrived at the gate at MIA at 3:05 am.

Passenger Mouna Boulos said throughout the ordeal, those onboard the airliner were each given a bag of chips to eat.

"They kept us almost 10 hours. This is not fair," she said.

"It was an unfortunate set of circumstances," Pantín admitted, adding the airline has begun contacting passengers to apologize.

It is also the continuation of an unfortunate pattern for American Airlines, which has seen a number of its planes stranded at non-destination airports over the past five months due to storm diversions. As Aero-News reported, American flight 1348 was stranded in Austin, TX December 29, after storms over DFW prevented the plane from landing. Passengers were kept onboard the plane inbound from San Francisco for over eight hours.

The incident spurred renewed interest in passing a "Passengers Bill of Rights," which among other items would set a maximum time passengers could be kept onboard a commercial flight before being offloaded. The movement gained added traction following a rash of similar incidents stemming from snowstorms in the Northeast.

Jim Berard, director of communications for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told the Herald little action has been taken on the proposed legislation. Instead, Berard said, Congressman James Oberstar has encouraged airlines and the DOT to work together to establish a set of rules for handling such incidents.

In February, American said it would set a maximum limit of four hours passengers could be kept onboard its planes. The carrier later said that limit was a goal, however, and not a guarantee... something passengers onboard flight 1908 can attest to.

FMI: www.aa.com, www.flyersrights.com