- Passengers on a United Airlines flight were stuck on the runway for over seven hours on July 3.
- The passengers claim that there was no air conditioning on the plane and the airline staff did not offer them water.
- One passenger stated, “We were trapped on that plane for seven hours in 70-plus heat, treated like animals.”
Passengers on a United Airlines flight were trapped on their plane for seven hours in poor conditions before the flight was ultimately canceled.
Flight UA40 was scheduled to travel from Newark to Rome on July 3, but technical issues prevented the plane from taking off. According to FlightAware, the flight was canceled on July 4 at 2:23 a.m.
The passengers were left without food or water as the temperature inside the Boeing 787 reached 80 degrees Fahrenheit due to the lack of air conditioning.
Although the incident occurred in early July, it only gained public attention after passengers shared their experiences on social media and spoke to news outlets. The Department of Transportation has since announced an investigation into the matter.
A video posted on TikTok on July 17 shows the scene after the passengers were finally allowed to disembark the plane. One passenger, Bianca Dragone, recorded another passenger, Christina Ieronimo, stating that someone had fainted on board due to the conditions.
Ieronimo, expressing her frustration, said to a United employee, “There’s children back there, and a girl had a panic attack and passed out — so that was a health concern. We had elderly people, we had babies, we have pregnant women — not even water, you didn’t even pass around water. Nobody listened to me, I’m a critical-care nurse, and that was not good.”
Newsweek previously reported that United had repeatedly delayed the flight before eventually canceling it due to an unspecified “technical issue.”
In an interview with Newsweek, Dragone described the temperature inside the plane as “truly unbearable” and confirmed that she witnessed someone fainting due to heat exhaustion.
In a follow-up interview with CBS7, Ieronimo stated that the airline staff had not provided passengers with food or water, and one flight attendant responded dismissively when her concerns were raised.
United has not yet responded to Insider’s request for comment.
Both the airline and the US Department of Transportation have confirmed that they will be conducting investigations into the incident.
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