2009 Rochester, Minn. airport tarmac stranding incident

The 2009 Rochester, Minnesota airport tarmac stranding incident involved the six-hour stranding of 47 passengers on board Continental Express flight 2816 for nearly six hours at the Rochester, Minnesota airport on August 8, 2009. Flight 2816, operated by ExpressJet, departed from Houston and was bound for Minneapolis/St. Paul when it was diverted to Rochester, Minnesota due to bad weather in Minneapolis. When the flight landed, the airport was closed. Mesaba Airlines employees, who were the only employees present in the airport at the time, refused to allow the passengers to deplane and enter the airport. The incident received widespread media coverage, resulted in civil penalties assessed against Continental Airlines, ExpressJet airlines, and Mesaba airlines, the first time the U.S. government had fined an airline for actions involved in a ground delay.[1][2]

The aircraft reached Rochester at 12:38 a.m. and the passengers were stranded aboard the aircraft until around 6:15 a.m., when they were finally allowed into the terminal.[3]