American Airlines Flight Makes Emergency Landing in Portugal
American Airlines Flight Makes Emergency Landing in Portugal
American Airlines Flight 66, scheduled to fly from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Barcelona-El Prat Airport, Spain, made an emergency landing in Portugal on Sunday. The emergency landing occurred after the pilot requested an emergency landing. The aircraft landed safely at Porto Airport, Portugal, at 5:40am local time.
AAL66 uses a Boeing 767-300 for the flight. The plane was inspected and was not cleared to continue on to Barcelona. Media reports that all 151 passengers and eight crew members arrived safely in Portugal and were accommodated at a local hotel until American Airlines could get them on another aircraft to take them to Barcelona. American Airlines later chartered a flight through TAP, the Portuguese airline, to take them on to Barcelona.
From reports on Twitter from passengers who were stranded without information, it appears American Airlines was not doing much to keep passengers informed of what their plan was to accomodate the passengers. A few tweets below show some of the passengers expressing their frustration for the lack of communication from the company. It seems customers were waiting at least 7 hours before receiving word from American Airlines what their plan of action was.
@AmericanAir Hi, AA66 flight. Please give us info. We are in a hotel in another destination waiting for info. Worst company ever.
— SquashPicks (@SquashPicks) January 22, 2017
@AmericanAir AA66. You have been playing with our lifes. Give us information. We are waiting in a hotel, for how long????
— Marta Rué (@marterue) January 22, 2017
@AmericanAir AA66. Any company can have technical difficulties. Giving no information after 5h defines how much you care about customers.
— Albert Oliveras (@ulisarria) January 22, 2017
Currently, the cause of the malfunction that led to the emergency landing is not yet known.
