Originally Posted by
Speedywheels
https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=551749
I experienced a similar event 6 years ago on a flight from LHR to PHL. We weren't allowed to leave the plane apart from the transfer to the replacement aircraft, being told that their were no immigration staff available at Goose Bay on a Sunday afternoon. Our plane sat in -12C temperatures for 10 hours and it got pretty cold. The rescue aircraft was a LHR-JFK plane that delivered its passengers to NY and then came back up to get us. An experience I don't ever want to repeat.
Obviously they were worried that passengers would try to escape into the nearest metroplis and enter canada illegaly- instead of taking shelter in a nearby barracks or hangar or ?
And the local townspeople would never notice