KTTC Rochester, Austin, Mason City News, Weather and SportsRaw audio: Pilot pleaded to evacuate stranded passengers on 'Nightmare Flight'

Raw audio: Pilot pleaded to evacuate stranded passengers on 'Nightmare Flight'

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC-DT) -- Newly released cockpit audio recordings show the captain of Continental ExpressJet Flight 2816 pleading unsuccessfully for her 47 passengers to be allowed to get off and go inside a terminal at Rochester International Airport on August 8, 2009.

The recordings of conversations between the pilot of Flight 2816 and a representative of Mesaba Airlines show the airline repeatedly turned down requests to allow passengers to enter the terminal because security personnel had left for the day.

Flight 2816 landed in Rochester at 12:28 a.m. after being diverted because of thunderstorms in Minneapolis.

The Captain requested that Rochester Station Operations let the plane go to a gate, but was told the airport was closed and not able to accommodate customers.

Transportation officials say passengers could have stayed in a separate area. Mesaba was the only airline with staff at the airport at the time.

At 4:23 a.m., Rochester Station Operations told ExpressJet Dispatch that the flight would have to leave, passengers would not be allowed into the terminal and there were no buses available.

At 4:44 a.m., the Rochester Station Operations Manager said the airport was now available for passenger entry, and he would look for a gate where the plane could park.

ExpressJet told the manager to plan on having passengers enter the terminal if the plane was not airborne in 30 minutes.

At 5:21 a.m., weather was still preventing the crew from taking off safely and there were approaching the crew critical off (CCO) time.

The plane was allowed to park at a gate at 5:58 a.m. and all passengers were inside the terminal at 6:20 a.m.

The flight finally took off from Rochester at 8:28 a.m. and landed in Minneapolis at 9:10 a.m.

When the NewsCenter talked to Airport Manager Steve Leqve on August 10, 2009 he said "if it were my decision to make, those people would never have sat out there on the tarmac for that length of time but it is not an airport decision, it wasn't a security issue, it's strictly an airline issue."

Click here to see the full timeline of events from Flight 2816.