Two Virgin America planes taxi on the runway after arriving at San Francisco International Airport after their first flights from New York and Los Angeles August 8, 2007 in San Francisco, Calif. ((Justin Sullivan/Getty Images))By Michael Ventura
DNAinfo Senior Editor
MANHATTAN — A Virgin America flight from Los Angeles to JFK Airport this weekend turned into a 16-hour nightmare with panic attacks, crying babies and no snacks for passengers after they were diverted to an upstate airport and forced to take a bus to the city.
Things were so bad on the flight, which was stranded for seven hours on the Stewart Airport tarmac before the nearly three hours bus trip, that snacks had to be rationed out — four Pringle chips per passenger, the New York Post reported.
"That's all we got — four chips and half a cup of water," Justin Gordon, 23, who was on the flight, told the Post.
The flight was scheduled to land Saturday afternoon at Kennedy, but due to 60 mph winds at the airport, it was sent up to Stewart. There it sat. Passengers told the paper they were forced to wait there for seven hours. The airline put it closer to 4 1/2 hours.
"Can't help mother nature but to leave people on the Tarmac for 5 hours should not be acceptable," Carrie Ann Inaba, a judge on "Dancing with the Stars" and a passenger on the flight, posted on Twitter. "People were panicking and they had no food."
"I will always travel with food from now on... :) after yesterdays craziness. But how do I bring enough for everyone?" Inaba tweeted.
One woman suffered a panic attack, the Post said, and was removed from the plane. Three babies were also cranky and screaming throughout the ordeal, the paper reported.
Finally, staffers from JetBlue, which has an outpost at Stewart, offered to take the passengers by bus down to JFK. They finally arrived at the airport at 2 a.m.
The empty plane was flown back to JFK, and beat the passengers there.
Virgin America said passengers would get a full refund.
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