Eight passengers who became ill on a charter flight from the Dominican Republic to Canada have been released from hospital in Florida.

No further illnesses have been reported among the passengers from the Air Transat Flight that made an emergency landing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Tuesday night.

CTV Edmonton's Bill Fortier told Newsnet on Wednesday that "we still don't know exactly what was wrong."

Families of the affected individuals think it might have been something they ate or drank, he said.

Those eight people remain in Florida, he said.

Terry Rollie, father of some of the sick passengers, said his kids and a relative named Allison Pattie were not feeling well when they left the resort.

"We figured Allison was sick before we even left the resort," he said. "We figured she was drunk when we left the resort, but it wasn't like that."

Rollie said after 11 people in their group got sick, he began to wonder if drugs were put in their drinks.

He said doctors later told him that they found traces of the date rape drug GHB in Pattie's test results.

"We thought there was something slipped in a drink," Rollie said.

The hospital wouldn't confirm that information to CTV News.

Honeymooners Krista and Chad Dorton said they also grew suspicious of what was making the entire group sick.

"They seem drugged," Krista Dorton said. "That was our first take on it."

Flight 477 passengers Sherry and Allison Zimmerman said it was shocking to see an entire group of people sick.

"There was one girl, she was just crying, hysterically crying," Allison Zimmerman said.

"They had been drinking before they got on the airplane," Sherry Zimmerman said.

Flight 477, from Santo Domingo to Edmonton, landed at the Fort-Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport around 11 p.m., airport spokesman Greg Meyer said.

Jean-Michel Laberge, a spokesman for Air Transat, said the plane was redirected after the crew consulted with Medlink -- a ground-to-air medical advisory service.

"When we saw these passengers were feeling ill we called Medlink and they advised us to divert to the nearest airport, which was Fort Lauderdale," Laberge told CTV.ca.

The sick passengers were removed and taken to hospital immediately but the plane stayed under quarantine on the runway.

"All the passengers were interviewed by the CDC (United States Centers for Disease Control) and paramedics," said Meyer. "No other passengers showed any signs of any illness."

The quarantine was lifted at 1:49 a.m. but the aircraft was not cleared for departure to Edmonton until about 4:45 a.m. because of scheduled runway maintenance, said Meyer.

He said the remaining passengers, about 250, and nine crew members were kept on the plane throughout the whole incident.

The plane has now arrived back in Edmonton. Officials reportedly interviewed the remaining passengers before allowing them to leave.

Fortier said he spoke with some of those from the aircraft. Their seven-hour flight turned into a 14-hour ordeal.

"They were on the plane grounded for several hours. They didn't have any access to food or water. They were hot, they were sweating. ... They just want to go home and take a shower," he said.

Air Transat specializes in both scheduled and charter flights from Canada to vacation destinations.

In the winter months, the majority of flights are between Canada and the Caribbean/USA and in the summer between Canada and many destinations in European countries.