We're you sleeping on the job? Southwest Planes Turn Around Minutes From Green Southwest Says Planes Could Not Land Without Air Traffic Control POSTED: 6:29 pm EDT May 16, 2006 UPDATED: 8:34 pm EDT May 16, 2006 Email This Story | Print This Story WARWICK, R.I. -- Two Southwest Airlines flights left Baltimore Monday night bound for Rhode Island, but it was just the beginning of a back-and-forth odyssey for dozens of passengers. NBC 10's Audrey Laganas reported that the planes turned around in flight just before midnight. The passengers said the pilots told them they were turning back because there was no one in the control tower at T.F. Green Airport. The stranded passengers were so mad, they called NBC 10. NBC 10 was waiting when they landed Tuesday morning. "It was so sad, and we were treated like cattle," said Michelle Harvey, who was flying home from Baltimore with her mother. "And then when we were flying, the pilot got on. He sounded greatly distressed. He said, 'There's no one at the tower in Providence. We have to go back.' We were about 10 minutes out. Ten or 15 minutes out," Harvey said. The passengers had to camp out overnight at the airport in Baltimore. Passenger Jillian Costa shot home video of the ordeal. "This guy right here," Costa said, talking about the video, "he slept in the corner with an oxygen mask on. It was terrible, with a piece of newspaper underneath him." Costa was traveling with an infant, and she wasn't the only one. "I had no formula. Nothing. He's been in the same diaper since 1:15 this morning," Costa said. "At one point, I needed something to mix her formula with and it took them forever to even give me hot water," passenger Fatima Andrade said. The passengers finally boarded a plane at 6:15 a.m., but their ordeal didn't end there. "Seven o'clock comes, still no pilot. They said, 'Well, he's stuck in traffic.'" Harvey said. "Quarter of 8, we were still waiting. So, a bunch of us asked for a supervisor. He came on and said, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' So we said, 'Can you pull another pilot from another plane,' which is what they eventually did." "The part that frightened me the most was last night when we were flying a plane load full of people ... going blindly into the night to an airport where there was nobody in the control tower," Jackie Heon said. "How bad is that?" One of the planes tried to land in Rhode Island, but when the approach failed, the pilot flew back to Baltimore. The control tower at T.F. Green closes at midnight, and a spokeswoman from Southwest Airlines said the airline did request that it remain open. "We made the request for both flights for the tower to stay open, and the local tower refused. Once they refused, we had no choice but to return back to Baltimore because we need the guidance of air traffic controllers to land in the weather conditions that were present," spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said. A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said based on control tower recordings, Southwest's version of events is "not true." "Southwest made a decision to return to Baltimore after the pilot attempted to make a landing ... [and] missed his approach," spokesman Jim Peters said. "Based on conversations, it was not necessary for the tower to be open when that plane landed." Peters said it is possible for flights to land without someone being present in the control tower. Southwest said it tried to find hotels for the passengers, but they were full. The airline said it will be sending an individual letter of apology to each passenger.
8) re: T.F. Green Airport, Providence, Rhode Island This airport is named after someone that my dad knew very well. Theodore Francis Green was a prominent Democratic Party politico in Rhode Island for decades. My dad was a professional tennis bum before Pearl Harbor swept him into the Army Air Corps and his most lucrative job was playing tennis with Senator Green on weekends. This relationship lasted for years and my dad always described it as, "Pretty damn good work for the Depression years." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_F._Green