Airliners on tarmac for hours

NEW YORK – It was a passengers’ nightmare at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Conn., this weekend.

Passengers on at least three JetBlue planes and one American Airline plane say they were stranded on the tarmac for seven hours or more after being diverted from New York-area airports on Saturday.

The ordeal continued after they were let off and had to spend the night on cots and chairs in terminals.

A passenger on one of the diverted JetBlue planes said the crew ran out of snacks and bottled water for the last few hours of the delay.

“The toilets were backed up. When you flushed, nothing would happen,” said Andrew Carter, a reporter for the Sun Sentinel of Florida. His plane took off from Fort Lauderdale for Newark Liberty International Airport at around 9 a.m. After being diverted to Hartford, the plane sat on the tarmac between around 1:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., he said.

A representative for Bradley International wasn’t available to comment.

A JetBlue spokeswoman, Victoria Lucia, confirmed in an emailed statement that six of its planes, carrying a total of about 700 passengers, were diverted to Hartford as a result of a “confluence of events” including equipment failures at Newark and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport that prevented planes from landing in low visibility.

Once the planes landed at Bradley, Lucia said, intermittent power outages at the airport made refueling and deplaning difficult.

Kate Hanni, executive editor for FlyersRights.org, said she got calls and emails from passengers and worried family members regarding at least four flights that were stranded on the tarmac for up to 10 hours.

An American Airlines spokesman, Ed Martelle, said the passengers weren’t allowed off the plane by customs at the airport.