A United Airlines B737 scheduled to travel from Newark to Denver on August 22 taxied at Newark Airport for so long that it eventually ran out of fuel.
The Boeing 737-900ER was taxiing to fly to Denver. However, the plane stayed on the tarmac and taxiways for more than six hours before the flight got canceled.
There have apparently been initial delays because of lightning and thunderstorms. The plane initially taxied for around 3 hours before coming back to the gate. But for the following three hours, the plane kept taxiing.
The captain announced: “On top of taxiing for hours, air traffic control gave us a longer flight path to Denver to avoid lingering storms. Which all meant we didn’t have enough fuel left to make it there.”
Passenger Hiroko Tabuchi – "You can’t make this up.. my United flight out of Newark taxied on the tarmac for more than 6 hours and now **no longer has enough fuel** to get to Denver — so we are taxiing back to the terminal."
📹Hiroko Tabuchi @HirokoTabuchi#airlines #aircraft pic.twitter.com/gFesq4nTzj
— FL360aero (@fl360aero) August 23, 2022
The flight was eventually canceled and the passengers got off the plane after spending another 8.5 hours on the tarmac.
“Oh my god, after 8.5 hours on the tarmac at Newark, and disembarking/reembarking/refueling the plane, the flight is a no-go,” tweeted the New York Times reporter Hiroko Tabuchi.
“We are heading back to the gate a final time. This time, it’s the crew – they’ve clocked out. ‘I’ve run out of apologies,’ the pilot just told us.”
