OK, would appreciate hearing whatever you can find out.

Anyone ever hear what happened about this flight? I'm just curious.

It was mechanical. During boarding the pilot stopped the process after ten minutes and said plane is "Broke". All went back inside airport to wait. They got out around 4:00 that afternoon. They each got a $12.00 voucher for food.

Glad they at least were waiting inside the airport, not on the plane. I saw in the DH the other day that some folks on KLM ended up waiting on the plane on the ground at SXM for something like 3 hours just within the past week. Wow $12 wouldn't go too far in an airport! That's not much compensation for that long a wait. I assume your friends missed their connection?

AA took care of connecting them on another flight getting them home much later that night to Chicago. Talked to them last night and told them they need to talk to customer service or write a letter and get some compensation for this via extra FF miles or a trip voucher credit

OK, surprised they were still able to get home that night. Made for a very long day, but at least they got home. Yes, if I were them, I would try to at least get some FF miles.

Yes it was a long day since they had to then drive from Chicago to Milwaukee and work the next day taking inventory.

Yikes, we generally don't get home until around midnight ourselves and usually have to work the next day, so I feel for them!