Senior officials at Munich Airport and German airline Lufthansa apologized on Friday for errors that led to hundreds of passengers being forced to spend the night on six planes that faced bad weather last week. Investigations since the incident on February 19 revealed that dozens of firefighters who could have helped deplane passengers were nearby, but were not called upon. Thomas Hof Andersen, Managing Director of Navigation and Operations at Munich Airport, stated: "They should have been deployed." He pointed out several opportunities that night to address the situation with emergency measures, but this did not happen. Hof Andersen said, "We did not handle the situation well" and apologized to affected passengers and flight crews. Heiko Watzke, a member of the Lufthansa board, said: "We made mistakes that night. Such incidents cannot be allowed to happen."
