Jetstar passengers begin having panic attacks and children are left ‘starving’ after the airline was forced to land due to a medical emergency, while sitting on the plane for 14 HOURS
- Jestar passengers trapped for 14 hours on diverted plane
- Emergency medical flight to land in Alice Springs
- Power failure grounded plane ‘without food’
Jetstar passengers have endured a nightmare of 14 hours stuck on a plane with half that time waiting on the runway without food.
Flight JQ30 from Bangkok to Melbourne took off at 9:30pm Saturday night but was diverted to land in the central Australian city of Alice Springs at 7:30am (CST) due to a passenger had a “serious medical emergency.”
After landing, an electrical fault was found, meaning the plane’s passengers were stranded until a replacement plane could be flown from Sydney.
Travelers were not allowed to disembark during the wait because Alice Springs does not have an international customs area.
The 320 people on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner began posting on social media that they had spent seven hours on the plane on the ground without being offered food.
Frustrated passengers wait to board a Jetstar flight that was stranded for hours in Alice Springs after being diverted to land on a flight from Bangkok to Melbourne due to a medical emergency.
“Passengers are having panic attacks on the plane, several children under the age of three are on board,” one passenger posted on Instagram.
No food has been provided yet.
Passengers were told they would have to wait until around 6 p.m. (CST) Sunday for the replacement plane to pick them up.
“The mood on the plane is unhappy, even if we could walk on the runway, people just want to get some fresh air,” passenger William Kiss told Channel Nine from inside the plane.
“We have been sitting in this aircraft with flight time included for close to 14 hours.
“I’ve had bad experiences with them in the past, but this is a different fish pot.”
Finally, sandwiches were distributed to the passengers and they were also offered the opportunity to disembark and remain in a sealed space in the Alice Springs terminal.
A Jetstar spokesperson thanked customers for their “patience and understanding.”
“We appreciate that it has been a long and frustrating delay and that the experience has been very uncomfortable,” the spokesperson said.
‘We work with border agencies, NT Police and the local airport authority to give passengers the option of disembarking in a specially divided section of the airport.
After seven hours trapped inside a grounded plane, Jetstar passengers were finally allowed to deplane and await their replacement flight in this bare section of the Alice Springs airport.
A desperate Instagram post revealed the plight of stranded Jetstar passengers
‘Then they will transfer directly to the replacement aircraft. We have also been working with the local airport to provide passengers with food, drinks and snacks.”
The spokesman was unable to provide an update on the health of the passenger who suffered the medical emergency and blamed the delay in food distribution on the lack of catering provided by the small Alice Springs airport on a Sunday.
As Alice Springs Airport is not equipped to claim baggage from the international location, you will not be accompanying passengers on their flight to Melbourne today.
Instead, the bags will remain on the plane to fly to Melbourne tomorrow when repairs have been carried out on the plane.
