Flight delayed by escaped crabs

Hatu

Veteran
Aug 20, 2002
645
132
MIA
New York (CNN) -- Passengers on a delayed flight at New York's LaGuardia Airport were understandably a bit crabby for a while Thursday evening -- and it wasn't because of the weather or a maintenance issue.

U.S. Airways Flight 890, set to depart at 7 p.m., was delayed a half hour after "a good number" of little crabs were "running amok in the cargo hold," said Josh Freed, spokesman for American Airlines Group, the parent company of U.S. Airways

Maintenance crews corralled the crustaceans -- which had escaped from their cages on the aircraft as they were in transit earlier -- before the flight was able to depart New York for its destination in Charlotte, North Carolina, Freed said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/03/travel/new-york-flight-crabs/index.html?hpt=hp_t4
 
Hatu said:
 Passengers on a delayed flight at New York's LaGuardia Airport were understandably a bit crabby for a while Thursday evening
 
I guess you could say it was a hairy situation they were itching to get out of.  If I were the shipper I know I'd be really steamed if I had to shell out clams to replace the escaped critters.  In the freight business you really have to pinch every penny to claw your way to profitability, otherwise you'll get boiled alive.
 
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I remember working a gate at DTW one day and a DC-9-10 came in from DAY. The rampers opened the fwd bag bin and crickets came boiling out of the bin. There were thousands of them everywhere. Evidently, it was a shipment from a bait farmer and the bin was full of the boxes of them. They had not been properly secured and more than half the boxes were open. We ended up canceling the flight and taking it to the hangar. It spent a day there taking bin floors up and vacuuming up.
 
Hatu said:
New York (CNN) -- Passengers on a delayed flight at New York's LaGuardia Airport were understandably a bit crabby for a while Thursday evening -- and it wasn't because of the weather or a maintenance issue.

U.S. Airways Flight 890, set to depart at 7 p.m., was delayed a half hour after "a good number" of little crabs were "running amok in the cargo hold," said Josh Freed, spokesman for American Airlines Group, the parent company of U.S. Airways

Maintenance crews corralled the crustaceans -- which had escaped from their cages on the aircraft as they were in transit earlier -- before the flight was able to depart New York for its destination in Charlotte, North Carolina, Freed said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/03/travel/new-york-flight-crabs/index.html?hpt=hp_t4
 
I'm having a hard time even imagining any proper announcement one could offer for that: "Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. I apologize for the delay, but it seems someone boarded with an improperly treated and very serious case of crabs."...?