Passengers shudder after 16-hour test on Canadian tarmac

MONTREAL: A medical emergency and a mechanical problem left pbadengers of a United Airlines flight stranded for about 16 hours on the icy tarmac of a Canadian airport in the interior of the country 's relatively unheated interior. plane, reported the CBC network.

United United Flight 179 took off Saturday night in Newark, New Jersey, bound for Hong Kong, with about 250 pbadengers on board.

When a pbadenger suffered a medical emergency, the plane landed at Goose Bay Airport, in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, on Canada's east coast, announced the airline at CBC.

But after the paramedics evacuated the pbadenger and took him to the hospital, the plane was unable to take off – apparently because the extremely cold temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius caused the door to freeze.

Without any customs officer on duty during the night, the pbadengers were forced to stay on board, many trembling under the thin blankets distributed by the flight attendants.

With food and water running out about 10 hours after the start of the ordeal, officials finally arrived to deliver supplies from Tim Hortons, a fast-food chain recognized in Canada for its coffee and donuts.

Sonjay Dutt, one of their reachable phone call, said the plane was under-heated and that the arrival of food and coffee was not enough to appease more and more pbadengers angry.

A rescue plane arrived in Goose Bay late Sunday morning. After the pbadengers were transferred into the plane by bus, he took off in the middle of the afternoon to take them back to Newark, where they had come the day before, the CBC announced.

Much of eastern Canada, as well as the northeastern United States, has been hit by glacial cold, with heavy snowfall resulting in numerous flight cancellations.

At the end of Calvary United, pbadenger Dutt tweeted that "the day was long, very long".