A plane full of American Airlines passengers were reduced to illegal immigrants when their flight was diverted to the Bahamas.
Few of the 100 passengers aboard Flight 2421 had passports when they boarded the two-hour flight from Puerto Rico to Miami on Saturday afternoon.
And it was midday on Sunday when they finally arrived at the Florida airport after their flight was diverted to the Caribbean island where they were forced to spend the night in the terminal.
A North Carolina passenger has gone viral with a passionate TikTok that has been viewed 2.6 million times since he recorded it in the middle of the night among his hungry, thirsty and exhausted companions.
“It’s like The Terminal with Tom Hanks,” wrote one horrified viewer.
Passengers had been stranded for seven hours in the airport terminal when the TikToker delivered his passionate update from the Bahamas at 5.40am.
American Airlines Flight 2421 was scheduled to take two hours to reach Miami after taking off from Puerto Rico at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, but arrived in the city Sunday afternoon.
Passports are not required for U.S. citizens flying from the mainland to U.S. territory in the Eastern Caribbean.
But Hurricane Debby was gaining strength out to sea and the struggle became one of the 2,000 people affected by the Category 1 storm as it battered Florida.
“We circled for about half an hour because of the weather, then the pilot decided ‘hey, we need to land in the Bahamas,'” the TikToker told his followers.
“This is a different country. The pilot asks: ‘Who has a passport here and who doesn’t?’
“And lo and behold, not everyone does it, because everyone expected to go from the United States to the United States.”
Three hours after takeoff, the Boeing 737 landed in the Bahamian capital, Nassau, but the passengers’ problems were only just beginning.
‘We landed the plane, we were sitting on the runway for two hours, we got off the plane, turns out the pilot can’t do overtime or something, so we had to get off the plane,’ said the TikToker with the username @griptape_dimas saying.
“We got off here, we can’t leave the terminal because they don’t allow us to be here, we’re here illegally and not only can we not leave the airport, we can’t leave the terminal, we can’t do anything.”
Passengers were taken to an air-conditioned terminal, where they were left without food, water or blankets overnight.
Passengers were left without food, water, blankets or medicine in the freezing cold terminal
‘Within the first hour of arriving here they told us: ‘the plane is coming, oh, they are disembarking from the plane, oh, it’s only 20 minutes to get here’.
‘After about hour five, everyone’s opening doors, everyone here is running like six seven hours with no food, Briscoff crackers and soda and frozen, zero information.
The two American Airlines front desk employees on site struggled to provide meaningful updates as the hours ticked by, but they convinced the bilingual influencer to translate their announcements into Spanish.
“After the fifth hour I knew the whole idea of disembarking a plane with a new crew from Orlando was a bunch of bullshit,” the TikToker lamented in his 5.40am update.
‘We were actually looking at the computer, after a while they turned it off because they didn’t want us to see it.
‘Now people have medical emergencies, there are medications on the plane. They are on the plane!
‘A gentleman here was told that he couldn’t come in and pick it up because of laws and bureaucracy.
‘They won’t call immigration because they tell us ‘they’re going to tell us the same thing.’
“We have been here for seven hours, there is no food, no water, it is cold, there are no blankets, we have one bathroom for 100 people, dogs, children, there is no information.”
Tracking data of Flight radar suggests their original plane took off without them from Nassau at 10 p.m. Saturday, landing just over an hour later in Miami.
But it was 10.15am on Sunday when the desperate passengers finally boarded a flight and took off for Miami.
“This isn’t even a cool airport,” the young TikToker noted.
“Mom told me not to get off the plane, that you’re basically an illegal immigrant right now.
“I hope they give me my green card from the Bahamas.”
Millions of people were moved by the TikToker’s testimony and many predicted a large compensation for the affected passengers.
Tracking data from Flightradar.com shows the plane’s meandering path on Saturday night before it diverted to Nassau in the Bahamas.
“Bring these people home immediately so this guy can run for CNN,” one wrote.
“Make sure AA provides you with a proper trip to the Bahamas so you can experience it properly,” suggested another.
“This is why you ALWAYS carry your passport when you fly, even on domestic flights, because you never know if you’re going to have to stop in another country,” added a third.
Dailymail.com has contacted American Airlines for comment.
