Irony found dead on international flight.
300 passengers spent 28 hours stuck onboard a Northwest Airlines plane recently while flying from Amsterdam to Seattle, held hostage due to a combination of fog delays, mechanical glitches, and overbearing government regulations. They were detoured to another airport, but were denied access to the airport's facilities, because the airport wasn't cleared to screen international passengers. 9/11, you know.

Meanwhile, the passengers got to watch the plane's crew disembark, presumably to sleep in comfy beds. Union rules, you know.

One man had to be taken off the plane by medics, another was treated for an undisclosed medical emergency, and a third required oxygen. All the food ran out, and passengers had to ration water... but that's probably just as well, since all the toilets stopped working.

After so many hours, the plane became a stinking soup of sweaty humanity. A riot nearly ensued when a frustrated passenger charged the cockpit with his kid.

''We're not doing it to be mean.'' - spokesman Mike Milne.

Oh... well, that's nice to know. Is it just me, or is the news reading a whole lot like Douglas Adams books lately?