June 5, 2009 | Deleted Users Posts Napa, CA – June 4, 2009: Delta flight 510 from Turks and Caicos boundfor Atlanta on April 10th, 2009 started out like any other flight forvacationing tourists who had spent a week in the sunny Caribbeanparadise. The passengers, spring breakers, families, and retirees weretired and a little depressed that their vacations were over, but theyhad no idea how their vacation would end. The flight was scheduled to land at Hartsfield International Airport inAtlanta at 5:04 pm, but the plane circled for a while due tothunderstorms below, and was ultimately diverted to Columbia, S.C.Metropolitan Airport where it landed at 5:44 pm. And there they sat,and sat, and sat. Five and a half hours later they were finallypermitted to get off the plane – not into the terminal, but into acold, stark room with about 20 folding chairs. Over 120 passengers, US citizens guarded by armed security personneland police, and nowhere for men, women and children to sit but a cold,concrete floor. “One elderly woman had to be removed from our “cell” byparamedics,” said one passenger. Listen here: Hotline Call U.S. citizens, stuck for six hours on the tarmac, then thrown into aconcrete cell for hours and treated like criminals in their own country. Some eleven hours after they boarded the plane in Turks and Caicos, thecriminals were moved to the terminal area that was wrapped in policetape, and finally given the chance to purchase food. One family’sbill came to $63.85 for seven scrumptious airport hamburgers! And a couple of hours later Delta bought them pizzas! Congress is currently considering a new FAA Reauthorization bill thatseveral consumer groups have urged that passengers’ rights legislationbe included that define specific limits for tarmac delays, and thatwould require airlines and airports to develop contingency plans forsuch emergencies. This stranding event is outrageous. Here again we have senior citizensand children trapped without food and water. And neither the airportnor the airline had a plan, despite Delta’s voluntary “commitments” todeal effectively with these tarmac strandings. FlyersRights.org has 25,000 members and is the largest non-profitairline passengers rights coalition in the U.S. The organizationoperates a toll-free hotline 1-877-359-3776 to assist stranded airlinepassengers. Please contact Kate Hanni at 707-337-0328 or orKate@flyersrights.com.