At a Glance

Passengers on a United Airlines flight spent 14 hours grounded in frigid temperatures this weekend.Flight 179 from Newark to Hong Kong was forced to land in Newfoundland due to a medical emergency.Temperatures dropped to -26 degrees as passengers sat in the plane on the tarmac overnight.The passengers weren't allowed to leave the plane because there were no customs officers on site.

Passengers flying from Newark, New Jersey, to Hong Kong were stuck on a frigid airport tarmac for a hellish 14 hours as temperatures dropped into the double-digit negatives this weekend.

United flight 179 left Newark Liberty International Airport just after 3 p.m. EST Saturday and began its trans-Atlantic path, due to a medical emergency, according to CNN.

The flight landed at Goose Bay Airport in Newfoundland around 9:30 p.m. AST, where the passenger was met by medical staff and transported to a local hospital.

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As the plane was preparing to take off for a second time and depart from the Great White North, the aircraft ran into a mechanical issue. Natalie Noonan, a United Airlines spokeswoman, told Global News that because it had likely frozen in the frigid temperatures.

However, because the airport had no customs officers on duty overnight, passengers were unable to leave the plane.

“The airport they landed in was just not equipped to handle everyone that was coming in," said Noonan.

As the hours ticked away, temperatures continued to drop, around 8 a.m. AST in Goose Bay, according to Weather Underground data.

With food running low, Goose Bay officials provided the nearly 250 passengers with coffee and doughnuts from Tim Horton's after nearly 10 hours into their diversion.

“I’ve travelled for work pretty much on a weekly basis for the last almost 20 years, and I’ve never experienced something like this," said passenger Sonjay Dutt.

A "rescue plane" — loaded with meals for its passengers — was sent from Newark to bring the Hong Kong-bound passengers back to the Garden State. Their savior plane left Goose Bay at 3:43 p.m. AST — more than 14 hours after it had departed the day before.

United told the passengers there were doing "everything they could" to keep them comfortable and offered refunds and vouchers when they returned to Newark around 6 p.m. on Sunday.