TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - All airlines strictly forbid smoking on board, yet two TUI Airways passengers on a flight from Cancun, Mexico, to London, England, smoked in the lavatory.
As a result, the aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded for 17 hours at Bangor International Airport in Maine, United States.
The incident took place on July 8, 2025. Terry Lawrance, a 66-year-old British passenger, described the journey as a terrible experience.
About an hour into the flight, the pilot announced over the intercom that two passengers had been caught smoking in the toilet and warned that the flight would be diverted if they did not stop.
Despite the warning, the two passengers continued, prompting the pilot to follow through. Roughly three hours later, as the plane neared the Canadian border, the pilot informed passengers that they were diverting to Bangor, Maine.
“Everybody was fed up,” Lawrance told Southwest News Service, as quoted by the New York Post on Friday, July 11, 2025.
Flight tracking from Flightradar24 showed the aircraft turning back toward Maine shortly after entering Canadian airspace. The plane landed at around 09:30 PM local time. The two individuals were then escorted off the flight. “They were obviously drunk, and he basically assaulted his partner,,” Lawrance said.
The pilot informed passengers that they would resume their journey once some documents were processed. However, what was expected to be a short stop turned into an ordeal.
Passengers remained on the aircraft for five hours before being told there was a problem with the flight plan and they needed to disembark. “Next thing, we’re not going anywhere,” Lawrance recalled.
According to him, the original crew had to leave the aircraft because continuing the trip would have caused them to exceed their regulated duty hours. A replacement flight was supposed to be sent from the United Kingdom, but complications delayed the plan.
The passengers were moved to a cramped waiting area that Lawrance said resembled a military base at the airport. He described the room as looking like a war zone, with “beds lined up” while passengers waited without access to their luggage, which remained on the aircraft.
Footage showed travelers lying on temporary beds set up side by side. Lawrance claimed they spent over 12 hours in those conditions. They finally departed at 03:00PM the following day, 17 and a half hours after landing in Maine.
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