Travelers were delayed at John F. Kennedy Airport Wednesday morning after about 100 turtles ambled onto a runway and blocked air traffic from moving.
JetBlue first tweeted news of the slowdown, with the hashtag #cantmakethisup.
The Port Authority later confirmed that workers had to clear the notoriously slow reptiles out of the area.
The turtles were mostly gathered on runway 4L, the Port Authority said.
There was no immediate word on what type of turtles they were, but if they were snapping turtles, perhaps they felt they had official clearance — the snapping turtle was named the New York state reptile in 2006.
The runway turtles aren’t the first animals to complicate air traffic at New York City airports.
The city has sought to reduce the local geese population in recent years, following the crash of U.S. Airways Flight 1549, which sucked geese into its engines and had to land in the Hudson River.
(Source: NBC New York)
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6 Responses
Didn’t this happen at least once before? Where are these turtles coming from?
It’s better to be held up by a hundred turtles, than 100 terrorists.
JFK is in the middle of the Jamaica Bay wetlands, and the Gateway National Recreation area, it’s got lots of swampland wildlife, migrating birds, etc. Good for summer trips to see niflaos haborei!!
So the turtle won the race once again.
I guess that they were applying for jobs as bag-handlers.
Geese flying in the air are hard to control and I cant blame anyone for that. But slow moving turtles? I cant see the excuse for these being able to gain access anywhere near the runways. Wherever 100 turtles gained access maybe a human or two could also. Had they gone thru passport control or not? So I can take my kids by plane on safari without leaving the ground?
Rumor has it they took this route to the runway cause they were trying to avoid the body scanners… !! Any to refuse a body scan they were nervous they would be asked to open up their packaging and submit to a body check!
And look what this caused? Another shell spillage to disrupt America…