Passengers Stuck on Plane All Night

Passengers stuck on plane all night:

Passengers on a United Airlines flight to Chicago arrived at O'Hare Airport on Saturday morning not by plane but by bus, after spending the night stranded on the tarmac in Milwaukee.

Flight 256 from Denver to Chicago was supposed to land at O'Hare at 9:58 p.m. Friday. Weather in Chicago caused the plane, carrying 155 passengers, to be diverted to Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport.

But the only gate at the airport capable of handling the wide-body 777 was occupied by an Air France cargo jet, which also had been diverted because of weather, United spokesman Rich Nelson said. The Air France crew couldn't move the plane because they would have exceeded the maximum number of hours they're allowed to work, Nelson said.

With the help of Northwest Airlines, United eventually got a movable stairway to the side of the plane, allowing passengers to disembark around 5 a.m. United then bused them to Chicago

(from Chicago Sun-Tmes).