After posting that this scenario would be problematic under US regs, I couldn’t shake the idea of how absurd this is. Where’s the benefit to the carrier in having pax remain, unsupervised, on board (and thus, in control of) this huge corporate asset? Wx strands pax in airports all the time. There’s just no reason to leave them on the airframe. What’s more, these passengers also had full access to the ramp and everything else on the airside at LHR. Is this not seen as a security issue at LHR? Finally, even if we allow for the possibility that the crew did this, what about gate agents, etc? Was there no one who took issue with this? With all respect, I find this difficult to fathom. However, if it DID happen as advertised, it is indicative of a systemic failure…
Dave