airline and several hundred passengers.

American Airlines local general manager Mrs. Carol DeCouto said flight 686 which normally leaves at 1.30 p.m. was delayed for more than nine hours on Sunday due to mechanical problems. Some 158 passengers left the Island shortly after 11 p.m. on the same aircraft that comes in at 9.30 p.m. and usually stays overnight to take out passengers around 7 a.m. the following day.

Therefore passengers who were scheduled to leave on the early flight yesterday were forced to either use another airline service or wait for the American flight which left in the afternoon.