Harrowing video captured terrified JetBlue passengers pleading with crew members to get off the plane in Newark following several failed attempts to land at JFK Airport during bad weather.
“I’m not going back in the air,” one passenger is heard yelling at flight officials.
Another man is seen begging to get off the plane, which the airline said had been scheduled to land at JFK after a flight from Cancun, Mexico.
“My kids are panicking,” the man shouts. “We gotta get off this plane. It’s dangerous!
“We tried to land four times already … we’re scared to fly, we wanna get off! I don’t want to go to jail but it’s not right,” he added to the officials.
However, crew members would not unlock the doors and kept the plane on the tarmac until the thunderstorms passed and they could make the quick flight to JFK.
“I don’t care about JFK — it’s our lives! People are sick back there, people are fainting, people are throwing up! A little respect for human beings!” the man continued as other passengers began to chime in about disembarking the plane.
In an emailed statement, JetBlue spokesman Derek Dombrowski said that Flight 1852 was diverted to Newark Liberty International Airport due to bad weather over JFK.
“Without proper customs processing available for the flight at Newark, the aircraft remained on the ground for 60 minutes and once the weather cleared departed again for JFK where it safely landed,” Dombrowski said.
Dombrowski added that a customs processing issue prevented the passengers from being allowed to leave the plane.
‘We apologize for the inconvenience this weather-related diversion created,’ the spokesman concluded.
The airline reportedly offered passengers $50 in flight credits for the inconvenience.
“They told us that we would have to wait hours for customs at Newark or 20 minutes to go back to JFK — where we still had to wait hours anyway. JetBlue gave us $50 flight credits for our troubles,’ one man on the flight said, adding that the passengers were “traumatized” after the ordeal.
In related news, JetBlue and Alaska Air announced recently that it will cut their flight schedules because of worker shortages.
“We’ve already reduced May capacity 8-10 percent and you can expect to see a similar size capacity pull for the remainder of the summer,” said Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue’s COO and president.
