8-hour ordeal left fliers hungry, angry

0 Comments | USA TODAY, May, 2007 | by Alan Levin

For more than eight hours, nearly 200 passengers sat in an American Airlines Boeing 757 jet on the tarmac in Midland, Texas. Their flight last month from Phoenix to Dallas had been diverted because of bad weather in the Dallas area.

The snacks ran out. Drinking water got scarce. Pizza was delivered, but only 50 to 70 slices, along with 30 bags of chips. The experience, five passengers aboard Flight 556 told USA TODAY, was inconvenient to some, nightmarish to others.

"I feel like I was hijacked or kidnapped because I couldn't get off the plane," says Dixie Lee Belmont, 65, of Sun City, Ariz. "You don't treat people like that."

Details of the April 24 incident began to emerge last week as passengers recounted the ordeal. It's the third such stranding...