The Qantas passengers on board the stranded QF171 flight at Ohakea air force base had a door of the plane opened to let some air in as of 5.30pm.
The Qantas passengers on board the stranded QF171 flight at Ohakea air force base had a door of the plane opened to let some air in as of 5.30pm.
Qantas passengers were stuck on the Ohakea military base tarmac for four hours today in sweltering cabin temperatures, after their flight from Melbourne to Wellington was diverted.
Qantas flight QF171, a Boeing 737, was diverted to the Ohakea RNZAF air base, 140km north of their Wellington destination this afternoon.
A Qantas spokesperson said the flight was diverted due to a mechanical issue and it landed safely just after 3pm.
Passengers on the flight have reported the captain informed them the reason for the diversion was one of the plane's flaps was stuck and the runway at Wellington was too short to land safely.
Passenger Tracy Johnson said she felt ill by the time they disembarked and that fellow passengers were close to fainting. She said she couldn't understand why passengers hadn't been allowed to wait in a room at the air base, rather than on the plane for hours.
"An elderly lady hugged me when we got off, she thought she was going to faint ... we all did," she told Stuff.
UK woman Lisa Blatch was on board the flight after a 40-hour journey from Gatwick Airport in London.
She was on her way to visit her sister in Wellington who is about to undergo surgery, and was waiting at Wellington airport to pick her up.
"There's baby in arms on the plane, people with young families," Blatch said.
"It's been two hours now. The plane is full. They've only just been able to open one of the front doors to let some air in to cool people off.
"Got to say the staff have been fantastic. The last we heard was the customs may be bussed up here from Wellington but we were told that about 10 minutes ago with an ETA of 7pm."
Shortly before 7pm it was reported by one of the passengers that Qantas was beginning to get passengers off the plane.
Earlier, during the four-hour tarmac wait, other passengers had been tweeting about the lack of customs facilities to process international passengers as the cause of their being stranded on the military tarmac.
Awkward when your international flight gets diverted to an air base, and they can’t let you off the plane because there’s no customs @Qantas@nzherald
#QF171 Can’t leave plane because no customs, can’t fly plane as broken, can’t get replacement plane (easily at least) as at air base. A difficult problem to solve @Qantas! @nzherald@NZStuff@radionz
"Awkward when your international flight gets diverted to an air base, and they can't let you off the plane because there's no customs," Suzy McKinney tweeted.
"#QF171 Can't leave plane because no customs, can't fly plane as broken, can't get replacement plane (easily at least) as at air base. A difficult problem to solve."
The Qantas passengers on board the stranded QF171 flight at Ohakea air force base had a door of the plane opened to let some air in as of 5.30pm.
McKinney added on Twitter that it was unclear what the mechanical issue with the plane was.
"A technical issue with the 'flaps' is what was cited by the captain," she posted
Another person apparently on board the plane, Ryan Newington, posted "it's getting very warm in here".
The Qantas passengers on board the stranded QF171 flight at Ohakea air force base had a door of the plane opened to let some air in as of 5.30pm.
Newington added Qantas attendants were refusing to open the doors of the plane and the temperature was becoming very uncomfortable.
"#QF171 sitting on the tarmac in the sun, getting extremely hot in the plane. Many passengers visibly distressed. @Qantas won't open the door because reasons. Customs apparently driving up from Wellington (2 hours away), not sure there's much point, we'll all be roasted by then," he wrote.
Another passenger added: "The crew are doing their utmost best to help and keep positive in super challenging circumstances. But two hours until we can ... dunno, get customs to consider letting us out? No wifi, poor reception, and water and crackers. At least we landed somewhere!"
Another woman who contacted the Herald said they had been grounded for an hour and a half at Ohakea but no decision had been made on letting the passengers exit.
"Best guess is that we'll have to wait a further two hours for customs to come to us," she said.
The woman had been travelling for more than 36 hours from the United Kingdom and said the aircraft was just sitting on the tarmac.
Passengers standing on board the stranded Qantas flight, originally destined for Wellington.
Elsewhere, another person contacted the Herald to say their parents had been trapped on board and had been flying for around 30 hours.
The person said they were not able to contact their parents as they didn't have New Zealand or Australian mobile phone numbers.
Their tickets were bought through Emirates, who along with Qantas, wouldn't help the parents' child get in touch with them.
"I got help from the person who has her sister in the plane. It was hard time, my parents were on the way to Wellington for almost 30 hours," they said.
"Qantas hasn't updated us for more than four hours, they just said, 'we don't know, you should wait'."
