Passengers Stage Sit-In After Ryanair Plane Is Diverted to Belgium

(Nov. 17) -- Passengers staged a four-hour sit-in on a Ryanair plane after their flight to France was diverted to Belgium.

More than 100 passengers were on board the plane, which was supposed to land in Beauvais, near Paris, Tuesday after taking off from Fez, Morocco, The Daily Mail reported. The flight, which departed three hours late, was diverted to Liege, Belgium, more than 200 miles from Beauvais, because of bad weather.

The passengers, most of whom were French, refused to leave the plane and insisted that they be flown back to France. Ryanair was offering a bus from Liege to Paris.

An airplane of the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair takes off from the T2 terminal of Barcelona's airport on September 01, 2010.

Josep Lago, AFP / Getty Images

A Ryanair plane takes off from the airport in Barcelona, Spain, on Sept. 1. After passengers on a flight diverted from France to Belgium refused to disembark, the crew locked the restrooms, turned off the lights and left them with no food or water.

"We were all tired after a long journey and angry at being dumped 200 miles away in Belgium," said Reda Yahiyaoui, who traveled with his wife and two small children. "We just wanted to get back home so we sat on the plane asking to be flown to France."

If the passengers thought they would win a victory over the discount airline, they got a shock. Far from being intimidated, the crew on the plane locked the toilets, turned off the lights and left the passengers with no food or water.

"The pilot left and he even left the cockpit door open," Yahiyaoui said, according to BBC News.

The passengers eventually disembarked at 3:30 a.m. local time, four hours after touching down in Liege.

Today, Ryanair defended its staff's behavior.

"The passengers were unreasonable and refused to follow the advice which would have allowed them to complete their journey," Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.

McNamara said the crew only disembarked from the plane after passengers became "disruptive."