JetBlue Airways Corp. faces a U.S. Transportation Department probe after leaving passengers stranded for seven-and-a-half hours when a snowstorm caused their flights to be diverted to Connecticut.

On Oct. 29, a total of 23 flights were diverted to Bradley airport, stemming from the storm and infrastructure problems at New York's Kennedy airport, Bloomberg reports.

Six flights were operated by JetBlue, which declined to confirm how long any of its planes remained inert on the airport tarmac. 1,500 passengers were stranded at the airport overnight.

The transportation department will determine whether the airlines, among them American Airlines, violated a federal rule requiring that passengers be allowed to leave stopped planes after three hours.

The airlines may also face being hit with fines as high as $27,500 a customer, Bloomberg reports.

Les Westbrooks, a former American Airlines pilot who now teaches at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, defended the pilots’ predicament in an interview.

“In some ways, it doesn't matter what the pilots do in that situation because there's not a whole lot they can control when they're diverted," Westbrooks explained, Bloomberg reports.

"You're inside the airplane and you can't let people off without help from someone on the outside,” he added.

Transportation officials will investigate JetBlue Flight 504 and "several other" flights in which passengers may have been stranded onboard more than three hours, the agency said in a statement today.

The agency said the Federal Aviation Administration is carrying out a "comprehensive review" of how the air-traffic system responded to the inclement weather, reports Bloomberg.

(ThirdAge)