Flight 1699 passenger J. Knepper said, “They got over Lake Charles and announced they had to lower and make an emergency landing. That same unit that they replaced was gone or it was bad.” Knepper was referring to repairs made to the planes air conditioning unit just before take off from Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. Flight 1699 passenger Donni Knepper said, “When we took off it did not feel like the air conditioning unit had been fixed. We were all sweating. A lot of us just had fallen off to sleep because we were so hot. You know what I mean.”

Besides being uncomfortably hot, the 737 began loosing cabin pressure. Johnston said, “Your ears were popping , you could not hear anything, you could not understand, people were scared. You got people laying on the ground out here. Not one representative from Continental has even come out to talk to anybody.”

J. Knepper said, “About half the people took off and rented every single car in Lake Charles. Some grabbed another jet out of here.” The rest of the 114 people on board were left with no other choice but to sit and wait for another plane to arrive.

The passengers of flight 1699 were scheduled to arrive in New Orleans sometime after 9:00 Monday night. A trip that should have taken about two hours, ended up taking more than nine.

Representatives with Continental have confirmed that loss of cabin pressure caused the emergency landing. No one was injured during the flight.