Originally Posted by
HercDriver130
Lets just talk about the conditions at the time.... it sucked, I know we were flying Amsterdam to Newark and got the word initially that Both of the Glideslopes for 4L/R were down..and the vis was at 2400rvr on the left side IF you could shoot the RNAV to that side. He landed at BDL at 1330...for a time reference we landed at SWF at 1402..... the weather at SWF at the time was crap. BLOWING snow...HEAVY snow... it took less than an hour for the snow to fill in the tracks of our 747. Blow the slides? are you freaking HIGH? thats good ....come sliding down into 8 - 12 inches of wet/frozen slush on the backside... brilliant idea. We waited 4 hours for customs to clear us. SWF was running on back up power, in a raging storm. They dealt with two pax diverts and it still took them several hours to get the passengers SAFELY off those two aircraft in the storm.
Probably plenty of blame to go around in this case, sometimes **** just happens. Should JB or any airline be fined in situations like this that are just beyond the scope of what these airports can handle...no. BDL is certainly a bigger pax airport than SWF but still... 20+ diversions... plus their normal traffic..... and ONE plane had an issue....sounds like overall they did a good job.
It sounds like you are talking about some strange expectation for people to have some common sense... good luck with that one. I do however agree with you post. Sometimes **** just happens. I don't see any alternative action for the crew in question. Slides were not an option and they were positively communicating the situation onboard their aircraft to everyone they could reach. They were just stuck there until someone came along to get the pax off the aircraft.