KLM Passengers Standed in Aruba … Good News Over 200 Passengers

A KLM flight was stranded in Aruba when it was determined that the MD-11 had engine problems that prevented it from taking off. However, luckily for the 200+ passenger that they landed in Aruba. Aruba seemed to have many available hotel rooms to put up the 200+ unexpected passengers from the KLM flight.

All of the passengers were able to take up shelter in hotels where according to a KLM-spokesman they ‘profited from all the comforts’

Lucky for these passengers that Aruba’s tourism is still floundering and that so many rooms were available at such short notice. One would think that with flourishing tourism that this would not be possible and  the rooms would have been booked. Especially on the weekend. So much for the reported positive tourism numbers out of Aruba.

Amigoe; August 6, 2007: KLM-passengers stranded due to MD-11 engine defect 

ORANJESTAD – The more than two hundred KLM-passengers scheduled to leave on Friday night were stranded on Aruba over the weekend due to engine defect. 

The plane departed from St.Maarten towards Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, and was scheduled to make a transit stop on the Reina Beatrix airport on Aruba. After landing on Aruba the inspection team discovered that three of the MD-11 engines did not meet the technical requirements.

All of the passengers were able to take up shelter in hotels where according to a KLM-spokesman they ‘profited from all the comforts’. They tried transferring ‘emergency cases’ to flights going through Curaçao to the United States. But because of the high season and all flights are fully booked, only a limited few were able to obtain seats.

Tonight the passengers will all be able to continue their journey with a Boieng 747 sent especially to Aruba by the airline company to pick up the stranded people as was confirmed by KLM’s regional manager on Curaçao, Wim Iserief. 

DOUBLE TROUBLE 

He also says that the airline company had to deal with double trouble over the weekend. A Combi-747 (for cargo and passengers) containing a new MD-engine arrived on Sunday, and had to turn back due to a defect of the so called maindeck highloader – a special apparatus of the KLM on the platform of the Reina Beatrix airport used to unload this type of cargo – while it had been tested the day before. In the meantime the machine has been repaired. Tonight the Combi will land on Aruba again with another engine and mechanics which will restore the MD. The Combi will take the remaining passengers along, while the MD-11 will return to Schiphol on a later date.