Passengers stuck on north Queensland Qantas flight for more than six hours

QANTAS passengers from Brisbane endured a nightmare six hours stuck on board a flight to Mackay on Monday and ended up in Townsville. What should have been a 1 hour and 35 minute trip turned into a lengthy ordeal after weather prevented the plane from landing twice in Mackay and a technical fault halted a third take-off.

The more than 100 passengers were forced to remain on board the Alliance plane for the entire journey on Monday and were not offered any additional food.

Between boarding at 2pm in Brisbane and disembarking in Townsville at almost 9pm, passengers were given only a muffin in the first hour of the journey and offered water and juice at 8pm.

The flight - QF2516 - was supposed to take off at 2.10pm from Brisbane and land in Gladstone 1 hour and 35 minutes later. However, the flight touched down in Townsville about 5.30pm and then again at 7.20pm after two failed attempts to land. The plane was to make a third attempt to get to Mackay at 8pm but the take off was aborted due to a technical fault.

"At this stage I don't think we'll be going anywhere," the pilot told irate passengers.

A Qantas spokeswoman said low cloud cover over Mackay had prevented the flight from landing.

She said it was an "unusual situation" and said passengers had not been offered any more food because the flight had not been re-catered on either of its two refuelling stops in Townsville.

Angry Qantas passengers were offered accommodation.

SOURCE