RRAAMJET, it was a DC-10-30.
The sequence as summarized in the Columbia Basin Herald was as follows:
The Northwest Air flight from Amsterdam had been scheduled to land at Sea-Tac at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, but heavy fog above the Seattle airport forced the pilot to circle until fuel ran low and the DC-10-30 had to be diverted to GCIA.
The nine crew members and 274 passengers on the flight arrived in Moses Lake about 3 p.m., and were deplaned into the terminal about 7 p.m., Baldwin said, after it was determined that another crew had to be brought in from Minneapolis to fly the plane.
"When they decided to send a crew out from Minneapolis, they chartered a Lear jet to take them out," Baldwin said. "(It) got a flat tire on take-off, so that delayed the new crew from coming out from Minneapolis."
Baldwin said it was about 2 a.m. Wednesday when the new crew arrived. The plane departed from GCIA about 5 a.m. and arrived at Sea-Tac at 6:30 a.m.
Since embarking on their 10-hour nonstop flight from Amsterdam, passengers had already been on the plane for roughly 12 hours by the time it arrived in Moses Lake.
Baldwin said passengers could not leave the airport because they had not cleared immigrations and customs, so the terminal had to be secured. GCIA has only one customs officer who is there to clear cargo that comes in and out of Moses Lake on a regular basis, and is not capable of clearing 283 people, Baldwin said.
The airport ordered pizza and chicken for the passengers, and Dana's at the Port provided sandwiches and drinks, he said, also crediting and complimenting staff from Air America, PSA, Big Sky Airlines, customs, the Grant County Sheriff's Department, Domino's Pizza and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Larry Peterson, president of the Port of Moses Lake Board of Commissioners, said that everything that came in to the terminal had to be X-rayed, including the pizza and chicken. People were also sent to Wal-Mart to purchase diapers, he added.
"That was a 100 percent, totally secured facility, so anything that came in had to go through full security measures," he said. "It sounds like it was well-handled."
Peterson said GCIA was picked because Moses Lake is a convenient place and a good spot to divert.
"At times, we've had as many as five or six international flights diverted in here," he said.
And it seems that old airlines (Air America (which didnt fly scheduled flights) and Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA)) don't simply fade away, they just go to Moses Lake