Hundreds of fliers touched down in San Francisco safely, but complained that they had to wait 12 hours on a tarmac in the Middle East before a 28-hour flight without up-to-date flight information or food, Yahoo! News reported.
The Etihad Airways Flight 183 took a turn for the worst when fog in Abu Dhabi caused the flight to be halted on the tarmac for half of a day, passengers said.
"They kept telling us that we were going to leave, you know 15 minutes from now, 20 minutes from now, 30 minutes for now, for 12 hours," passenger Thomas Piani said in San Francisco after finally arriving in the city when the ordeal was over.
Other fliers said the Abu Dhabi airport was crowded with stranded travelers and passengers aboard flight 128 couldn't get off the plane to wait.
"Everybody was fighting with each other, and the flight attendants were fighting with us, and we were fighting with the flight attendants," passenger Venkatesh Pahwa said.
Children, seniors and hundreds of other fliers then embarked on a 16 hour flight to San Francisco for a total of 28 hours in an enclosed space.
Etihad Airways apologized for the incident, saying that fog cancelled 20 flights in Abu Dhabi. One couple said that despite the wait, they were happy the flight didn't get canceled, ABC News reported.
"We had already had another flight earlier canceled on this trip and it was a nightmare," said Megan Hamilton.
But Hamilton said her boyfriend proposed to her on the trip, making everything seem a little easier.
The maximum amount of time passengers can be kept on the tarmac is four hours, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
