Delta Passengers Stranded on Island, Pleading for Food Are Told They Should be ‘Grateful’ Plane Didn’t Crash

Passengers on a Delta flight were sequestered on a Portuguese island for 12 hours after an emergency landing, with no food or explanations, while airport employees told them they should be grateful that their plane hadn’t fallen into the sea.

The flight, which was scheduled to travel from Ghana to New York, was suddenly diverted to Terceira Island in Portugal. Delta officials said that the delay was caused by a "mechanical issue with a backup oxygen system," according to Insider. 

In a video shared by one passenger on X, an airport employee told the passengers that they should not “start a revolution.” 

“This female rep told us we should be grateful that they allowed us to be here, and our plane didn’t crash in the sea,” the passenger tweeted.

Nana Asante-Smith, who was on the flight, shared her experience in a Facebook post, where she described feeling “abandoned” by Delta and mistreated by employees at the Portuguese airport. 

“Understand me clearly and unequivocally when I say that if this situation had befallen over 200+ white passengers flying from a European country, their reality would have been very different from ours,” she wrote. 

Asante-Smith said that the passengers were taken to a cordoned-off section of the airport because the people traveling on Ghanaian passports did not have visas to enter Portugal.

During their sequestration, the passengers had virtually no contact with Delta, according to Asante-Smith.

"We were trying to reach out to Delta during this time, and ascertain what exactly was going on to no avail," Asante-Smith said.

Initially, the passengers were told that they would be fed around noon and that a plane would arrive to take them to Boston by 2:15 p.m.

Later, however, the airport employees said that they would not feed the passengers because the airport had learned that the passengers were fed on the plane, shortly before their 6 a.m. landing. 

“In response to this befuddling update, a gentleman asked about complimentary water bottles,” Asante-Smith wrote. “One of the airport representatives … told the gentleman that we could drink water from the bathroom faucets.” 

Some passengers were able to purchase food from a cafe, while others received ham sandwiches, juice and cookies after “begging and pleading,” Asante-Smith wrote.

After waiting in the airport for half a day, the passengers were finally able to board a plane to New York. Asante-Smith said that updates on their flight came from a third-party source because Delta was still not communicating with them.

The airline said that they would provide the passengers with refunds, according to Insider.