Troubled plane full of Canadians at first refused Florida landing
By Tom Peters / Transportation Reporter.
The Halifax Herald Limited. Wednesday,
March 14, 2001
American immigration policy on Cuba caused some testy moments on a charter
plane full of Atlantic Canadians returning to Halifax from the Caribbean island
late last week.
Claudine Bertin of Halifax, who was travelling with her 11-year-old daughter
on an Air Transat flight from Holguin, Cuba, said officials in Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., refused the pilot's first request to land when there was a problem with
the landing gear.
The Boeing 757 aircraft left Holguin at 3 p.m. last Thursday with 228
passengers. But the crew found the landing gear would not completely retract,
which slowed the aircraft down and consumed a lot of extra fuel.
"The captain sought authorization to land in either Fort Lauderdale or
Miami but was denied because the plane was coming from Cuba," Ms. Bertin
said.
The United States, which has an embargo on almost all dealings with the
Communist country, is vigilant about Cubans entering the country illegally, and
officials were concerned there may have been some on the plane. There were no
Cubans on the aircraft.
Seychelle Harding, an Air Transat spokeswoman in Montreal, said Tuesday the
problem wasn't considered serious, but the captain wanted to be cautious and
land the aircraft.
A Transport Canada spokesman said that under international aviation
agreements, if an emergency had been declared, the plane would have been allowed
to land immediately.
A second request to land in Fort Lauderdale was granted, but U.S.
immigration authorities said passengers would not be allowed off the plane.
"We were on the plane for five hours," said Ms. Bertin, whose
husband is Cuban. "What I found most interesting was a young lady, about
15, who was quite sick. She was very dehydrated and had a high fever.
"There was a doctor among the passengers, and he requested she be
allowed off the plane. (It) took nearly three hours before she was allowed off,"
Ms. Bertin said.
Immigration officials eventually boarded the aircraft, questioned some
passengers and then gave passengers about 20 minutes to fill out immigration
forms and leave the plane.
Air Transat sent a second aircraft to Fort Lauderdale, and the passengers
arrived back in Halifax at 7 a.m. Friday.
Ms. Bertin was very complimentary of Air Transat crew.
"The crew was helpful, very kind and very informative. I also got the
feeling the captain was doing his very best to get us off the plane," she
said.
But Ms. Bertin was not pleased with the treatment offered by American
officials. She says she'll find out what is the right channel for filing a
formal complaint.
Ms. Harding said Air Transat has not lodged a complaint with the U.S.
because it was an immigration issue.
"If a plane came here from another country, they would have to listen
to our immigration rules and follow those rules, so we really can't do anything,"
she said. "It is the first time for us in 13 years of operations that we
had to stop in the U.S. for a flight coming from Cuba," she said. | 