Irate Airline Passengers Stage Sit-in Protest in Belgium

LIEGE, Belgium -- Belgian authorities say about 90 irate passengers spent almost five hours on a Ryanair plane refusing to disembark after their flight was diverted to Liege instead of landing at Beauvais airport in northern France.

Passengers from three other diverted Ryanair planes accepted an offer of bus transportation to France when fog shut down the Beauvais airport, 350 kilometers (225 miles) away. But mostly French tourists returning from Morocco on a fourth Ryanair plane refused to disembark when the plane landed about midnight in Liege.

Christian Delcourt, the spokesman for the Liege Airport, said the situation was tense and some passengers "were very aggressive, very rude."

He said passengers finally left the plane at the request of police.