Emergency landing in St. John’s frustrates stranded travellers

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — More than 200 passengers were left stranded and frustrated in St. John’s on Wednesday after a flight from Montreal to Germany made an emergency stop.

A representative from the St. John’s international airport confirmed that a Lufthansa flight arrived slightly after 2 a.m. NDT.

Passenger Bob Burgess of Halifax said the unplanned landing was related to a passenger’s death.

Lufthansa spokesman Tal Muscal confirmed that the aircraft landed in St. John’s for a medical emergency and said a passenger was taken to the hospital, but could not confirm whether a death occurred.

Burgess said the early landing meant that passengers were unable to leave the plane until after 6 a.m., and they soon discovered that hotels were booked for a convention.

Lufthansa does not operate out of the St. John’s airport, so there were no additional staff on the ground to facilitate accommodations — and crew onboard had to break for a legally mandated “rest period” before preparing the aircraft for departure Wednesday evening.

Muscal said the airline co-ordinated with airport staff to greet the passengers, but accommodations weren’t available for the lengthy, unplanned stop.

“Unfortunately beyond that there was no way to accommodate them, and as you can imagine this was unexpected — the diversion occurred for medical reasons,” Muscal said.

A replacement flight to Munich was scheduled to leave at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday