Examination of the public prosecutor’s office: forced overnight stay on the plane without criminal consequences

An “uninvolved third party” had requested an examination

The police took action after a “probably uninvolved third party” suggested an investigation into the events, the Upper Bavaria North police headquarters said. This application was received via a contact form at the State Criminal Police Office in Munich. According to police, no reports were received from affected passengers.

According to a Lufthansa spokeswoman, all those affected on Lufthansa Group planes were offered financial compensation – “even though the passengers would not have been entitled to this under the EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation due to the weather.” Anyone who provided contact details received a letter of apology with a link to file a claim. How much money the travelers received was determined based on the length of the planned flight. Both the airline and the airport apologized for the “unreasonable situation”.

Planes could not take off due to snowfall

According to the airport, a total of six flights with around 600 passengers who were already on board and were supposed to take off were affected. But when, contrary to expectations, the planes were not allowed to take off due to heavy snowfall, there were no buses to bring the passengers back to the airport building.

Night flight regulations apply in Munich between midnight and 5:00 a.m. In order to still enable as many flights as possible, a special flight permit was obtained at night and aircraft were sent onto the tarmac until 1 a.m. However, due to the heavy snowfall, the six affected planes were unable to take off in that time window.

The fire brigade was nearby – and was not alerted

While the passengers had to wait on the planes, according to the airport, there were dozens of firefighters nearby who could have helped. “They should have been alerted,” said Thomas Hoff Andersson, managing director of aviation and operations at Flughafen München GmbH, after the incident. Overall, there were several options that night to remedy the situation with emergency measures, but that didn’t happen: “We didn’t manage it well.”

In the future there should be “clear guidelines if escalations have to take place to the next management level”. In addition, the airport and Lufthansa want to cooperate even more closely in such cases in the future.