The story of Flight 662: Crying babies, fainting passengers, arrests during four-hour nightmare at Oakland airport

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OAKLAND — After more than four hours stuck in an Aeromexico plane on the Oakland International Airport tarmac on Thursday, babies cried, women began to faint and passengers fanned each other with magazines to keep cool.

Some passengers called 911, others phoned passenger rights advocates and still others reached out to family and friends desperately trying to find a way to get off the plane after their flight from Guadalajara got diverted to Oakland instead of landing at San Francisco International Airport due to fog.

One man threatened to open the Boeing 737 door if they were not allowed to deplane and that prompted the pilot to call the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, who wound up arresting two men, spokesman Ray Kelly said. Finally at 3:30 p.m., almost five hours after they landed, the passengers said they walked off Gate 1 and experienced more delays going through customs with its staffing depleted from the federal government shutdown.

It was the latest airport tarmac debacle and one that left passengers, many who live in the Bay Area, rattled. The incident also appears to have violated the U.S. Passenger Bill of Rights, which provides international flights a maximum of four hours on a tarmac before the airline must allow passengers to deplane. Airlines face steep fines of $27,000 per stranded passenger if found in violation, and Kelly said there were more than 100 people on board.

In the end, two men from Flight 662 were arrested for being unruly — although they were later released without being charged — and a woman was treated for breathing problems, Kelly said. Passengers began to panic the longer the plane sat on the tarmac.

“They started calling media, family. They felt trapped, they were hungry, they wanted air conditioning,” Kelly said.

Passenger Arnie Zavala said the crew gave them food and water earlier in the day, “but that was it.”

“Babies were crying, people were passing out,” the exhausted and red-eyed Pittsburg resident said.

Nancy Miranda, of San Jose, waited at Terminal 1 for her father, mother and brother. She had been talking to them by phone and they described a chaotic scene inside the aircraft. Making matters worse — her brother is claustrophobic.

She said only two immigration officers were working because of the federal government shutdown, slowing down the customs process.

“I was worried about my mom,” she said. “She has high blood pressure.”

The decision to keep passengers on the plane falls to the airline, Kelly said. The flight departed Mexico at 6:20 a.m. Pacific time, and landed at Oakland airport at 10:43 a.m.

The airline released a statement late Thursday saying it does not have any operations at Oakland airport and had to request special authorization from airport authorities to disembark passengers. Aeromexico said two passengers caused disruptions leading to the detainment.

“Once the permits were released, the passengers were able to disembark and were transported by ground transportation to reach their destination,” the company said.

Kelly described the moment when his agency got involved.

“One particular passenger got really upset and said if he didn’t get let off the plane he was going to open the door. That’s when the pilots called us,” Kelly said.

Although Kelly said earlier that both men would be turned over to the FBI, which handles crimes involved with air travel, he said late Thursday that both men had been released without charges. Television news video showed one passenger handcuffed walking down a staircase to the tarmac.

Ivan Garcia, a Fremont resident traveling with his girlfriend and his “terrified” 6-year-old daughter Destiny, said the two men arrested were trying to help the passengers.

“They shouldn’t have been arrested. If anything they were speaking up for us,” he said.

Garcia said they were initially told they would be let off the plane and then flown to SFO, but after two hours passengers got restless.

“It almost seemed like they had the heater on,” said Garcia, as his daughter held onto his leg.

He asked for food or water for his daughter but flight attendants said they were out. Passengers started sharing what food people had brought with them, sending around crackers. The last of the water was gone by around 11 a.m.

Joel Smiler operates the hotline for Flyers Rights, a nonprofit that specializes in the Passenger Bill of Rights, and received a call from an upset woman on the Aeromexico flight at about the three-hour mark. He alerted her that on international flights the passengers must be deplaned within four hours on the tarmac. The law is three hours for domestic flights, and crews are required to pass out water and refreshments at the two-hour mark, Smiler said.

“People get pretty mad when they’re on a plane and there’s no definite hope that it’s gonna end,” Smiler said. However, the Department of Transportation agency that received such violation reports is closed during the ongoing government shutdown.

Passenger Rosario Gonzalez of Oakley said the flight attendants did not lift a finger to help. She said one of the men detained is a registered nurse who was worried about his fellow passengers. Some of the passengers, Garcia said, vouched for the two men after customs and explained they were just trying to help.

Related Articles Flight 662 backstory: Why Aeromexico took nearly five hours to release passengers from plane at Oakland airport When asked if he’d fly Aeromexico again, Garcia said: “Hell no!”

And then he excused his family from the throng of media in the Oakland terminal. His family hadn’t eaten since breakfast and they needed dinner.

Staff writer Harry Harris contributed to this report.

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