Delta passengers stuck on an island after a flight diversion recalled how airport staff said they should 'be grateful' their plane didn't crash in the Atlantic Ocean

• Passengers on a Delta flight on Friday say they were stuck on an island airport for 12 hours.
• When they raised concerns about conditions at the airport, they said they were told to "be grateful."

Angry passengers on a Delta Air Lines flight that diverted to a Portuguese island say they were stuck in an enclosed area of the airport for 12 hours and were told by staff not to start "a revolution."

One of the passengers, who said the flight took off on Friday, wrote a public complaint on Facebook, alleging that customers were told to drink water from bathroom faucets and had to negotiate for food.

"We were abandoned by Delta and treated like encroaching roaches by airport representatives on Terceira Islands," said Nana Asante-Smith.

A Delta Air Lines spokesperson told Insider that Flight 157 from Ghana to New York diverted to Terceira, a Portuguese island in the Atlantic, due to a "mechanical issue with a backup oxygen system."

The oxygen in the cabin and cockpit were not affected, but the plane landed in Terceira out of "an abundance of caution," the spokesperson added.

At Lajes Airport in Terceira, passengers disembarked and were brought to a "partitioned section" of the airport, Asante-Smith told Insider.

Asante-Smith said they arrived at around 6 a.m., and that the air crew were soon shuttled away to a hotel, while passengers were told to remain and tried to contact Delta for more information.

"We were trying to reach out to Delta during this time, and ascertain what exactly was going on to no avail," Asante-Smith said.

Meanwhile, airport representatives initially told the passengers they would be given a meal and that a plane from Boston would arrive in several hours to pick them up, Asante-Smith said.

But she said the meals did not arrive, and passengers were only given ham sandwiches, juice boxes, and crackers later after "begging and pleading."

"Which is interesting, because anyone who is intimately familiar with West Africa or our Muslim brothers and sisters know that many people have dietary restrictions with eating pork," Asante-Smith said.

She said passengers were "befuddled" by the response from airport representatives, and for hours didn't receive information from Delta on what they could expect.

Some in her travel group were receiving messages from airline representatives that seemed to be copied and pasted, while others were told a rescue ship was coming, Asante-Smith added.

"Many of us were eagerly looking out the window to see if a Delta plane was landing," she said.

When one elderly passenger asked for water bottles, he was told by a female airport staff that they could drink water from faucets in the bathrooms, Asante-Smith said. But none of them had cups, and few had water bottles, she added.

The same staff told the passengers, many of whom are Black, multiple times that they shouldn't "start a revolution" and that they should "be grateful at a second chance at life," Asante-Smith said.

Kiaundra Eggleston, another passenger on the flight, posted a video on social media of a female staff member confronting passengers.

"This female rep told us we should be grateful that they allowed us to be here and our plane didn't crash in the sea," Eggleston wrote.

Asante-Smith said a flight eventually arrived to pick up the Delta passengers at around 6 p.m. — 12 hours after they initially landed in Terceira.

When they arrived in New York's JFK International Airport and brought their complaints to Delta, the passengers were told that the airline was overwhelmed, Asante-Smith added.

She and her husband eventually booked a new flight home and a nearby hotel on their own, and left JFK the next day, she said.

Ghanian rapper Sakordie made a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying he was on the flight and missed performing at an event in Detroit due to the diversion.

"It was unfortunate but I know these things happen so I wasn't trippin even though they communicated poorly and didn't have the courtesy to update us on exactly what was happening," Sakordie wrote.

In response to the complaints, the Delta spokesperson told Insider that the 215 customers on Flight 157 were given meals at Terceira, and waited around 12 hours for another aircraft to arrive from Lisbon.

They also said the customers' bags were sent on their original aircraft to JFK as the second plane only had one hour of landing time in Lajes Airport.

When asked about claims that Delta was overwhelmed when the passengers arrived in JFK, the spokesperson pointed to poor weather conditions on the US east coast that weekend that they said caused airline staff to be swamped with requests.

The spokesperson added that customers were also provided with refunds.

Asante-Smith said she was sent a $400 voucher and was sent an email about a full ticket refund, but has yet to receive the money as of Monday morning. She added that she still has not received her bags.

The Lajes Airport did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.