TUI plane makes emergency landing on Curacao over cracked window

A TUI plane en route from Bonaire to Amsterdam made an emergency landing on Curacao on Sunday night due to a crack in one of the cockpit windows. The Boeing 787 landed without problems, but it took some time for TUI to accommodate all the passengers on the island, NOS reports.

The window cracked after the plane had taken off from Bonaire. The pilots and crew decided to play it safe and make an emergency landing. "You'd rather not cross the ocean with a crack in the window," Petra Kok of TUI Nederland said to the broadcaster. The landing went smoothly, but it took a few hours for the passengers to disembark because the airport was closed in the middle of the night.

Once disembarked, TUI managed to quickly accommodate two-thirds of the passengers. But around 100 were stuck at the Willemstad airport for hours while the travel organization looked for somewhere to stay. "It is very busy in Curacao. It is easter. We called like crazy, but hotels were almost all full," Kok said.

One passenger told NOS that he waited more than six hours for TUI. Another passenger said the organization tried to accommodate them in a Red Cross shelter, but they refused. TUI eventually managed to get the last 100 people into a hotel on Monday afternoon. The passengers will return to Amsterdam today.