Almost 200 passengers were stranded at Bermuda International Airport for eight hours after a pilot made an emergency diversion to the Island.

The Easter Saturday drama was the second time Airport chiefs had coordinated an emergency incident in eight days.

A Canada 3000 charter jet, carrying 199 passengers, radioed a distress signal to Bermuda's air traffic controllers when it lost cabin pressure on route from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Toronto.

The plane touched down just after 5 p.m. -- and its passengers had to wait in the airport departures area until a relief plane landed in Bermuda after midnight.

The travellers eventually took off again at 1.15 a.m. yesterday, more than eight hours after the on-flight emergency.

Last Saturday, a US Airways Boeing 737 from Philadelphia -- also flying to San Juan -- was forced into an emergency touchdown when low oil pressure forced the captain to switch off an engine.

And senior Airport officers again stressed last night that the planes were only able to land because overnight work on the runway is halted on Friday and Saturday nights.

Work to resurface the airfield's landing strip is underway on every other night of the week for the next two months, and only Mayday calls can be accepted during construction periods between 8.30 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Duty airport officer Skip Tatem said: "It's certainly been very fortunate that these incidents happened on Saturday nights.

"The pilot didn't actually declare an emergency, so technically this wasn't an emergency landing.

"But it's something we classify as an emergency diversion and it was lucky for all concerned that we were able to accommodate them.'' Mr. Tatem added that Canada 3000 executives frantically arranged for a relief plane to take the passengers onto Toronto -- and the original plane flew home at a lower altitude.

"There was a problem with the cabin pressure on board and that was the reason for the unexpected diversion,'' said Mr. Tatem.

"The plane was able to fly back at a lower altitude to negate the pressure problem but it would not have been suitable for the passengers.

"That's why the relief aircraft was flown in. The airport did its very best to make things comfortable for the passengers, but only the sandwich stall was open at that time.

"Other than that, they had eight hours just waiting around.'' The travel-weary passengers watched their original plane take off at 8.50 p.m., more than three hours before their new jet was able to land.

Three more planes arrived in Bermuda several hours late this weekend, after their pilots abandoned attempts to land in 50 mph winds.

Two US Airways services, from Philadelphia and Baltimore, and an American Airlines plane from Delta, had Bermuda in their sights when they headed for home on Good Friday.

Mr. Tatem added: "The pilots tried to land but called off their attempts because of the severe weather.

"The US Airways flights came in much later on Friday, very late in the evening. The Delta flight was rescheduled completely and landed at around 8.15 on Saturday morning.''