Claris Law Legal Blogging Community

Name:

E-mail:

Phone Number:

Zip Code:

Your Question:

Editor: James T. Crouse
Profession: Aviation Accident Attorney

Category: Airline Travel

Heavy fog at LAX forced TACA airlines flight 670 to divert to Ontario on Sunday night. So far that's okay, inconvenient, but okay - safer than trying to land in heavy fog. What happened next is like a repeat of JetBlue - the passengers were forced to stay on board from 11:30 p.m. Sunday night until 9 a.m. Monday morning - all 200 of them.

According to one of the passengers, they were told only there was bad weather in L.A. and they had to refuel. When other planes around them started to leave, the passengers were questioning why they were stuck there. Stuck they were indeed, for nine hours with little food and water and failing bathroom facilities. Firefighters did board the plane around 4 a.m. with snacks and bottled water at which time the passengers told them of the horrid bathroom conditions. Medical personnel were called to the plane a few times, but the passengers were actually fine according to a spokeswoman for Ontario Airport.

The plane could not take off again because the flight crew had reached their maximum numbers of flying hours and the passengers could not deplane because there were no customs agents available at the airport. The airport referred the customs questions to U. S. Customs stating it is not up to the airport to let passengers off the plane. A spokesman for the U.S. Customs said TACA Airlines never asked permission to deplane the passengers - to which TACA replied that in Ontario they don't have the local authorities permission for our passengers to go through customs and to enter the country through this point, forcing us to keep all passengers on board the plane until the situation changes.

So it seems the passengers were caught in the middle of a bureaucratic mess until the fog lifted officials thought it safe to land in L.A.

TACA Airlines is headquartered in San Salvador and is made up of a group of five combined Central American airlines with 50 destinations around the world and it continues to grow.