*bicker* wrote:
My question is: isn't this kidnapping?

It would have been a violation of US law to let folks off
the aircraft without adequate security measures in place.

Where there is a will, there is a way. Remember that northwest is also the
airline that had kidnapped passengers at Detroit airport some years ago
because they were unwilling to bring airstairs to the plane and there were no
gates available due to a snow storm.

Where the airline should be held responsible is in using some inadequate
airfield. They could have diverted to Portland, Victoria or Vancouver and not
wait until they had runned out of fuel and needing to land at the nearest
piece of runway they could find.

In fact, in hindsight, they would have been better off landing at vancouver
and busing passengers to seattle, or land at victoria and hop on the ferry to seattle.

Surely this wasn't the only intl flight coming into Seattle ? How di dother
flights get handled ?