47 Trapped on 9-Hour 'Nightmare' Flight

If 9 hours on a grounded puddle-jumper with screaming babies and the scent of overly busy toilets wafting through cramped aisles sounds like your idea of a good time, then Continental Airlines had your ticket to paradise. When storms forced a Minneapolis-bound flight to divert to Rochester, Minn., on Friday, a comedy of errors forced the plane to sit on the tarmac overnight, passengers locked in, the Star-Tribune reports.

Here's what went wrong:

• The crew maxed out its hours, and another crew had to be brought in.
• A chartered bus didn't come through.
• The kicker? Airport personnel couldn't let passengers in because they would have had to go through security again—and security workers had gone home.

(More airline delays stories.)