A TUI plane that was en route from the Dominican Republic to Amsterdam made a precautionary landing on Curaçao last night. The landing of the Boeing 787 went without problems, but about a hundred passengers say they will be left to their own devices at Willemstad airport.
“We have been sitting here for about six hours now. Without food, without drink, without anyone from TUI,” one of the passengers, Tom Decabooter, told NOS.
Petra Kok of TUI Netherlands states that of the three hundred passengers on board, about two hundred have been accommodated. “It’s very busy in Curaçao. It’s Easter. We’ve been calling like crazy, but hotels are almost all full. We even spent a while working on an empty nursing home. Anyway, it’s true that there are still some” 100 people have no shelter. That is annoying enough, because I understand that the airport is now closed.”
Windshield in the cockpit
According to passenger Decabooter, the plane departed from the airport at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic as planned. Things went wrong after a stopover on Bonaire. “The pilot said that a windscreen in the cockpit had exploded and that he had to make an emergency landing. That’s how we ended up in Curaçao,” he says.
TUI Netherlands has a slightly different lecture. “What I understand is that after the stopover on Bonaire, the captain noticed a crack in the window in the cockpit. And with a crack in the window over the ocean, you’d rather not do that. So, just to be safe, he made a precautionary landing on Curaçao,” said Kok.
Landing without panic
The landing went smoothly and without panic, says Decabooter. However, it took a long time before the passengers were allowed to leave the plane. “During that time we got something to eat and drink. Then it took another two hours before we got through customs,” he says.
And now we have to wait and see when the group of about one hundred remaining passengers will be accommodated and when a replacement flight to Amsterdam has been arranged. “We can’t get to everyone because some of those hundred people are behind customs, but we have already sent an update text three times,” said TUI spokeswoman Kok. Decabooter says they will be left to their own devices, but according to TUI, that is not the case.
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