HARTFORD, Conn. -- The pilot on a Virgin Atlantic flight that spent numerous hours on the tarmac after being diverted to Connecticut had asked for consent to unload the stranded passengers, but a customs bureaucrat threatened to have them arrested if they did, the airline said Thursday.

Customs officials denied the airline's accusation.

The trans-Atlantic flight's captain was told by a customs authorized at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks that passengers couldn't get off the plane until more colonization officials arrived, Greg Dawson, an airline spokesman in London, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. It took more than two hours for the official to turn up, he said.

The London-to-Newark, N.J., was diverted because of storms. Passengers sat on the tarmac in Connecticut for four hours late Tuesday and premature Wednesday in rising heat and darkness. Travelers said they were presented water but no food; some fainted.

Virgin plane is actually hot. But passengers are complaining it. Want to know why? Read on…

Yesterday passengers of the airline at Newark (N.J) airport who spent hours wedged on a hot, dark plane on the tarmac in Connecticut described a scene of bewilderment and misery as their trans-Atlantic flight was late, and then diverted, as too hot, reports Huffpost via AP.

Kimberley Vince was on Tuesday night Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Newark, N.J., to begin effort as a camp counselor on New York’s Long Island. She was among the numerous busloads of passengers who arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport by mid-morning Wednesday.

She said the crew made recurrent announcements from the tarmac that led passengers to believe they’d be departing soon.

The fate of the debt-struck Cyprus Turkish Airlines, or KTHY, stay bleak on Tuesday, as the conflict between the Turkish Cypriot government and the local labor union escalate to a new level in the aftermath of the deferral of flights.

Turkey’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation suspended all KTHY flights as of Monday nighttime. The Hava-Sen labor amalgamation, organized at the KTHY, staged a strike in the premature hours of Tuesday, as flights were canceled. As the hit grounded services, Turkish airline company Pegasus’ flights were also grounded for little hours.