SYDNEY – Hundreds of passengers on a United Airlines flight were stranded for much of Friday after a diversion from their long flight to Sydney.
Flight UA863 from San Francisco was diverted from Sydney after debris was found on the runway, closing the runway for half an hour, news reports said.
The plane was flown to Canberra, but because there is no custom or passport control at the airport, the 300 passengers were kept on the plane.
United Airline said that it would have to fly new pilots to Canberra to take the plane to Sydney as the crew had passed their working hours.
After four hours, passengers were allowed to get out of the plane, but were confined to a fenced-in military section of the tarmac.
As the hours dragged on tempers flared with many passengers who had been traveling for more than 30 hours taking to Twitter to vent their frustration.
Seven hours after landing in Canberra the plane was refueled and a new crew took them on to Sydney.
The temporary closure of the Sydney runway reportedly forced a second United flight from Los Angeles to be diverted to Brisbane.
Two afternoon United flights leaving Sydney for the U.S. had to be cancelled.(dpa/NAN)
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