WCBSTV reports: A runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport was shut down briefly Wednesday morning after at least 78 turtles emerged from a nearby bay and crawled onto the tarmac. Grounds crews eventually rounded up the wayward reptiles and deposited them back in the brackish water farther from airport property, but not before the incident disrupted JFK’s flight schedule and contributed to delays that reached nearly 1 1/2 hours.
A six-hour tarmac wait for some air travelers this weekend has two New York legislators calling for a law protecting flyers from having to wait out delays in the cramped quarters of an airplane.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and New York State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris called for the passage of the federal bill on Sunday. They say the law would ensure that travelers won’t be unnecessarily trapped on airplanes for excessive periods of time without adequate food, water or restrooms.
On Saturday, 100 passengers bound for Minnesota waited six hours on a John F. Kennedy International Airport tarmac before their plane took off.
The lawmakers say 52 percent of extreme U.S. air delays are flights coming in and out of New York City-area airports.
(Source: CBS2 HD)
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4 Responses
If the airlines are forced to pay compensation for each hour of confinement on the plane, they would shape up in 60 seconds flat.
Another stone of contention is the cancellation of a flight for no other reason than the fact that the plane is not occupied enough.
Who can Paskin if and when we have a right to kill turtles when the turtles have such an effect on our lives? I can not. If we know the turtles are there, are we allowed to drive an airplane down that runway? What rights do the many people on various flights have when these rights are at the expense of the turtles? An ethical dilema, no? The mitsvah of Tzar Balei Chaim (the turtles) and Baal Tashchis (the many hours and dollars spent over the delay to get the turtles off the runway.) Tzarich Iyun.
This article implies that this event happened on a recent Wednesday. However, it seems highly improbable that there would be _two_ incidents of JFK’s runways being shut down by 78 turtles in the same summer – this report (in almost the same words) can be found in quite a few news sources, all of which were published on July 8th or 9th.
It’s not so much the turtles. It’s any foreign object on the runway. At the speed that these planes move on the runway, any hard object on the runway can be catastrophic.