Long plane delay leads to 'rioting,' social media venting

Passengers traveling to Miami from New York City on a delayed Delta Air Lines flight were stuck on the tarmac for more than six hours.  (Dreamstime/TNS)
Passengers traveling to Miami from New York City on a delayed Delta Air Lines flight were stuck on the tarmac for more than six hours. (Dreamstime/TNS)

MIAMI - Passengers traveling to Miami from New York City on a delayed Delta Air Lines flight were stuck on the tarmac for more than six hours. Then a fight broke out.

Delta Flight 2385 was scheduled to leave John F. Kennedy International Airport by 4 p.m. Thursday. It departed about seven hours later, at 11:10 p.m., to Miami International Airport, according to the airport's flight tracker.

It didn't arrive until 2:28 a.m. Friday.

And there was anger.

"The A/C was off. They didn't serve us water," passenger Sumeet Kapoor told WSVN. "My dad almost died on the plane. It was so hot that we couldn't breathe. There were kids on the flight. They never served us anything."

Frustrated passengers recorded the "nightmare" experience on social media.

"Delta 8 HOURS and counting. Captain had "no idea" where the ground crew was," Twitter user juanchi72 wrote. "Parked in a "remote gate" in JFK. No food, no water. A fight broke out, police was called. A NIGHTMARE."

At 11:20 p.m. JFK airport tweeted that Port Authority Police was responding to the fight.

Another Twitter user posted a video of police inside the plane, multiple police cars - lights flashing - parked on the tarmac.

"People are rioting we had no food or water for all this time," lvrdplex tweeted.

Delta Airlines said the delay was caused by the bad weather and that customers had the opportunity to get off the plane.

"Delta flight 2385 with service from JFK to Miami was delayed due to weather in both Miami and New York," Delta said in a statement to the Miami Herald. "Customers were offered both water and snack service while on the tarmac and were also offered the chance to take a bus back to the terminal given the plane was parked on a remote pad for quite some time. We apologize for the inconvenience."

John F. Kennedy International Airport representatives did not immediately respond for comment.

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