Passengers aboard an Air India flight were stranded on the tarmac at London's Gatwick Airport without food for nearly nine hours on Sund...
Flight 131 from Mumbai was due to land at Heathrow at 7:30 a.m. but was diverted to Gatwick due to heavy fog. The plane, after a 10-hour flight, landed at Gatwick about 8 a.m.
An Air India employee told the BBC that "creeping delays" led to the long wait.
"The plane was diverted and we were given to understand that the weather would clear in one and a half hours.
"It was one and a half hours and they would be back in 90 minutes, so it didn't make sense to deplane the passengers at that time.
"Then at around 11.30am, we heard the slot was only in the afternoon, at 1.30pm.
"By that time, we decided the crew was not supposed to operate beyond a certain time, so we rushed a crew from Heathrow. It took them time to reach Gatwick."
Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that police were called in to ease tensions as the approximately 200 passengers, forced to remain on the plane despite being just a few hundred yards from the terminal, grew increasingly frustrated.
"Everyone was very hungry and there was no sign of any food," passenger Jas Johal told Agence France-Presse.
"Why not let us deplane at Gatwick," tweeted BBC news producer Rahul Joglekar, who was aboard the flight.
Gatwick is about 45 miles — an hour's drive — from the flight's original destination of Heathrow.
A spokeswoman for Gatwick Airport told the BBC that Air India refused to let the passengers disembark.
"If they had allowed them off, the passengers would have come into the terminal. We would have helped with their welfare.
"We did everything we could while they were at Gatwick. We can't do anything with the passengers if they don't disembark."
The flight, with a fresh crew aboard, was finally given permission to take off for its final destination of Heathrow, where it landed just after 5 p.m. Upon arrival, Air India reportedly gave travelers a letter of apology.
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