For nearly four hours last Thursday night, Flight 5637, a 50-seat regional jet, was stuck on the ground by bad weather at Kennedy International Airport. The air-conditioning wasn’t working, and no one seemed to have a clue about when the plane would take off.

I wish I could say I was writing about this because the situation was unusual. Or that it was as bad as air travel can get. But I can’t.

What was unusual was that one passenger on the flight, David Ollila, runs a company that makes video cameras the size of a roll of quarters for mountain bikers, skiers and other amateur athletes to attach to their helmets and capture their thrills. And Mr. Ollila had one of those little cameras with him.

He marched up to the plane’s front, stood a few feet from the open cockpit door and interviewed the captain, demanding to know why something wasn’t being done to get the passengers off the plane.