Lightning storm strands Halifax airline passengers - Nova Scotia - CBC News

Lightning storm strands Halifax airline passengers - Nova Scotia - CBC News

What a night. The last few days have been hectic! Emily is gone this morning to Minnesota for a convention. On Sunday, preparing to go, she realised her passport was expired....over a year ago! She thought she wouldn't be able to go, but due to the encouragement of one pilot husband (yours truly), who contacted a few customs agents, did some searching and scheduling, she got her doctors appointments done, passport pictures and passport and boarded onto an oversold airplane, all in less than 2 days. With all that was thrown at her, to top it all off, we had an incredible light show last night. 8 hours of thunderstorms! Never seen the likes of this ever. Thunderstorms usually pass through in an hour or so.
I had an interesting yet tiresome evening at the airport. It started with a flight out to Fredericton and back. The storms started moving in on the way back to Halifax, and by the time we were landing, there was lighting all around us! We followed our other company plane in, who said the ride in was smooth, otherwise we probably would have gone elsewhere. We landed and watched the light show, but due to the lightning, no one is allowed onto the ramp area. That means no -one to guide the planes in to park, or refuel, etc. After a hour or so a few more aircraft joined us and stuff just piled up. After 3 hrs I shut down one of our engines to save fuel. I didn't think we'd be there this long, then an hour later I arranged to go park myself near the gates, because I knew we'd be running out of gas soon! Sure enough, after waiting 5 hrs we ran out of gas! Thankfully we had the airplane with the bathroom! I gave everyone a 20 minute 'last call', then the airplane went dark for another hour or so!
This led to the chaos that normally happens after a big storm, and Emily's flight out was oversold by 13. Somehow she got on at the last minute! We hope she has a good time, because it looks like Someone really wanted her to get out there!