Once the airports officially closed it was pretty much game over for even the savviest travelers, as there was no trick up your sleeve that could makeaplane take you to a closed airport, and pretty much everything in the Northeast, from JFK and Newark and Philly down to Hartford was closed.
The UN confirmed that a white Antonov transport aircraft with false markings to make it look like a UN plane had been seen dropping supplies in an area where a rebel commander, David Yau Yau, has been operating.
"Our main version is a spontaneous move by the stabiliser into an extreme position that caused the plane to makea steep climb at high speed, " Mr Chernov told Russian NTV television.