The airport was the scene of a mob of tired and angry passengers on Wednesday night after a Delta Air Lines flight was forced to abort plans to take off three times due to three separate malfunctions.

The Boston flight, which was due to take off at 5 p.m., eventually landed safely at its intended destination early yesterday -- some eight hours late.

But 45 passengers who were fed-up or scared to take the flight had walked off the jinxed airplane before it left the Civil Air Terminal.

One passenger described how a mob of irate passengers crowded the airport lounge shouting abuse and demanding their tickets back from Delta agents. "It was chaos,'' the woman said. "They couldn't cope.'' The airplane's few hundred passengers, who included many business executives and tourists, had been waiting at the airport for the flight to depart for more than five hours.

Their ordeal began on Wednesday afternoon when they learned the scheduled 5 p.m. take-off had been delayed due to a malfunction.

The passengers had to wait in the departure lounge until 7.15 p.m. while local Aircraft Services personnel worked on the problem, which was a computer glitch in the cockpit, making it impossible to operate, Delta local manager Ms Jackie Zuill said.

"That matter was rectified but just as the aircraft was about to push back from the gate there was another malfunction,'' she said. "It was a bleed valve malfunction.'' Ms Zuill explained this problem prevented the aircraft from flying through extreme cold weather conditions.

But, "The matter was also rectified and we pushed away from the gate,'' she said.

However, while headed for the runway, a third malfunction was encountered similar to the second.

To the dismay of passengers thankful to finally be under way, the airplane had to be towed back to the gate.

Ms Zuill said it was decided to fly to Boston via Atlanta which would entail warmer weather. "We just couldn't fly at high altitudes,'' she said.

Other measures were considered, she said, when asked why Delta did not fly in another aircraft. But after consultation with Delta's Atlanta offices it was felt flying to Boston via Atlanta was the best course of action, she said, adding the carrier had put safety first in coming to the conclusion.

Ms Zuill said 45 passengers chose to get off for various reasons and the flight finally took off at 9.12 p.m.

Those passengers were mostly American visitors, presenting further problems to Delta agents in finding hotel accommodations for them.

Agents were eventually able to find rooms for all of the displaced passengers at the Princess Hotel.

Ms Zuill said the passengers' anger towards Delta was to be expected and "justified''.

"Naturally they were upset,'' she said. "It was not the most pleasant experience. But you can't take it personally. We wished we could do something for them.'' She said she was unable to discuss whether Delta would be issuing refunds or discounts. "We compensate our passengers in various forms, she said.

Several Bermudian passengers simply went home and flew out the next day. After further repairs in Atlanta, the plane safely landed at 2.24 a.m. in Boston.

"We haven't had an irregular flight due to malfunction for quite some time,'' she said. "But it is never a good time to have one. The situation was compounded by having one problem on top of the other.'' Ms Zuill praised the "highly skilled'' technicians at Aircraft Services who diagnosed and rectified the problems in consultation with Atlanta engineers.