183 people spend 6 hours on Canadian Forces base tarmac after Delta Flight 446 forced to land

Over 180 Delta Air Lines passengers were forced to wait over six hours on the runway of a Canadian Forces base in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Nfld., after their flight from New York to Iceland was diverted early Wednesday morning.

Delta Air Lines Flight 446 departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport at 9: 15 p.m. Tuesday and, according to a passenger, shortly before landing in Iceland, the plane was diverted and forced to land at Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay.

“As a result of deteriorating weather conditions and low visibility in Iceland, the flight crew of Delta Flight 446 from New York-JFK to Keflavik, Iceland, elected to divert to Goose Bay, Canada, to wait for conditions to improve,” the company said in a statement. “An alternate flight crew is being flown in to continue the flight. Customers have been provided refreshments and egress opportunities while on the ground in Goose Bay, and will be offered a gesture of service recovery along with Delta’s apology for the inconvenience.”

A passenger took to social media following the diversion, saying passengers were not allowed to deplane.

“Delta flight 446 to #Iceland had emergency landing in Canada’s military base. Passengers not allowed to come outside,” Gideon Black tweeted. However, Black later shared video of passengers sitting on the tarmac.

“Stranded 6 hours and counting Delta flight 446 in Canada military base. People were given water, muffins,” Black.

Delta Air Lines spokesperson Michael Thomas told Global News the plane had landed at approximately 5:30 a.m. local time and was expected to depart before noon.

“We expect the continuation flight to depart in the next few minutes as the new crew is on the ground now,” Thomas said in an email. “We are replacing both the flight deck crew and the cabin crew as they are both exceeding allowed federally regulated duty limits.”

Black told Global News the flight was about an hour from Iceland before being diverted.

“Captain just said that the reason we got diverted is because Delta plane we are on didn’t have enough fuel and planes that had enough fuel were landed in Iceland at 7am,” the passenger said. “I will never fly Delta again and so are most of people on board here.”