Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

and Kevon Felmine

Scores of pas­sen­gers aboard a Caribbean Air­lines flight from Mi­a­mi to Pi­ar­co, Trinidad on Mon­day, were left strand­ed for 30 hours in Puer­to Ri­co af­ter an emer­gency land­ing there due to the death of a pas­sen­ger.

The flight had 146 pas­sen­gers on board.

CAL’s Flight, BW483, was en route to the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port when about halfway through its jour­ney, around 6 pm on Mon­day it land­ed in Puer­to Ri­co af­ter flight stew­ards alert­ed the cap­tain of the med­ical emer­gency in which the pas­sen­ger died.

Guardian Me­dia was told that it was not un­til 8.15 pm that pas­sen­gers and crew mem­bers were al­lowed to dis­em­bark the plane and more 10 hours be­fore they got an up­date.

CAL did not dis­close what hap­pened to the air­craft to pre­vent the pas­sen­gers from trav­el­ling on to Trinidad, but said in a state­ment yes­ter­day morn­ing that an­oth­er air­craft was sent to re­lieve the pas­sen­gers by mid­night Mon­day.

How­ev­er, that air­craft was al­so un­able to leave, due to cir­cum­stances out­side of the air­line’s con­trol.

With every hour that passed, ten­sions rose among pas­sen­gers who flood­ed the counter for an­swers on when they will be back in the air and on their way to their des­ti­na­tion.

Des­per­a­tion al­so kicked in for one pas­sen­ger who was on her way to her fa­ther’s fu­ner­al.

Zo­ri­na Al­li, a Guyanese na­tion­al, sobbed as she spoke to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day morn­ing plead­ing with CAL to take her home.

“They need me home… I hear my dad passed away on Sat­ur­day so I booked my tick­et on Mon­day,” she cried.

She left on Mon­day on CAL’s flight BW483 en route to the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. There, she was to meet her sis­ters and take an­oth­er flight home to bid their fi­nal farewell to their fa­ther yes­ter­day. She said rel­a­tives were try­ing to post­pone the fu­ner­al un­til she got home.

The Cus­tomer Ex­pe­ri­ence Team apol­o­gised to cus­tomers and by 10 am yes­ter­day, of­fered ho­tel, meals and trans­porta­tion at the air­line’s ex­pense as­sur­ing that it had been “work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to get you to your fi­nal des­ti­na­tion and are com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to­ward this end”.

Some said they wait­ed more that four gru­elling hours for some re­lief.

“We haven’t seen a sip of wa­ter or grain of rice since then,” Michelle Michael-Jo­gie, a for­mer WINTV Sports An­chor who was among the strand­ed pas­sen­gers, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

She said here were sev­er­al el­der­lies, in­clud­ing a 94-year-old, wait­ing.

“When I checked in Mi­a­mi, they of­fered that we send our hand lug­gage through car­go which we did, as well as a lot of el­der­ly peo­ple did. Those el­der­ly have their med­ica­tion in that bag and we haven’t even got­ten ac­cess to our bag­gage yet,” she in­di­cat­ed in an ear­li­er in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia around 11:30 am yes­ter­day.

By 3 pm, Michael-Jo­gie said they were shut­tled to their ho­tel.

Around 4.40 pm, CAL sent an email to pas­sen­gers in­form­ing them that a new flight, BW3483, would be at Ter­mi­nal C, Gate 2 for a de­par­ture time of mid­night. The flight was sched­uled to ar­rive at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port at 1.50 am to­day. Arrange­ments were made to have the pas­sen­gers picked up from the ho­tel at 8 pm last night.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Brown said he was in touch with CAL through its Cor­po­rate Sole, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert.

“I feel great em­pa­thy for the af­fect­ed trav­ellers and par­tic­u­lar­ly the fam­i­ly mem­bers of the trav­eller who passed away,” Browne said.

“Our Hon­orary Con­sul in Puer­to Ri­co has al­so been close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and pro­vid­ing the MF­CA with reg­u­lar up­dates,” he added.

There has been no con­fir­ma­tion as to what was the cause of the pas­sen­ger’s death but she is be­lieved to be a Unit­ed States na­tion­al.