United Airlines flight 23 from Newark to Dublin diverted to St. Johns, Newfoundland with a medical emergency on Thursday. Passengers are still stuck there days later, with little hope in sight and no plan to fly out today.
The Boeing 777-200 (N217UA) departed Newark at 7:44 p.m. on Thursday. About three hours into the 6½ flight, pilots squawked 7700 with an emergency, reporting a medical issue on board.
The plane turned back towards Canada, and landed on runway 10 in St. John’s.
United’s short Newark – Dublin flight operates with an unaugmented cockpit, having just a two-pilot crew and little margin for extended duty time. Passengers reported as well that the plane had run out of water.
Once on the ground, emergency medical personnel were quick to board the aircraft and attended to the unwell passenger.
However, the rest of the passengers were kept on board for an extended period without information. Eventually, they were shuffled onto a school bus bound for a hotel with no update on plans for further travel.
One traveler noted, “@united’s solution to stranded flight UA23 is to pack us all on a school bus to some hotel where we will wait until they decide what to do with the flight.”
Other flyers detailed a confusing series of communications—or lack thereof—with United. Some accounts mentioned that, after landing, calls to the airline were treated by customer service agents as if their flight originated in St. John’s. They went long stretches with minimal information.
Initial plans hinted at a follow-up flight—the same aircraft operating as UA3040—departing from St. John’s to Dublin the following morning. However, that passenger was scrubbed:
Stuck in Newfoundland for another 24 hrs because of weather. Still no United employees in site. This is the “ticket” the local airport staff gave us this morning since there wasn’t anyone from United to handle the situation. It got canceled about 2 hours later.
They decided to go to the nearest field rather than continuing to their destination, when they were halfway there. Details on the medical emergency are scant, but it must have been serious.
There was little opportunity to get a replacement crew to St. John’s quickly. Weather was an issue as well, cited for why the airline couldn’t get passengers access to their luggage. So they waited. And waited.
There’s not a lot that United can do directly on the ground in St. John’s. That may have been the best place to land under the circumstances, and conditions there can be challenging.
The decision though not to send additional crew or a rescue flight – or at least accountable management to communicate with customers – compounded the challenges.
