Bird strike: Stowaway pigeons on Delta flight cause mayhem and almost an hour’s delay
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Two feathery stowaways ended up inside the cabin of Delta Air Lines Flight 2348 on May 24, delaying the flight twice.
PHOTO: SCREENGRAB FROM TOM CAW/INSTAGRAM
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Pigeons, a plane and a flight delayed. Yes, it was a bird strike, but not quite what you might think.
Two feathery stowaways ended up inside the cabin of Delta Air Lines Flight 2348 on May 24, delaying the flight twice and causing mayhem on board.
The first pigeon showed up just after boarding, passenger Tom Caw said in a post on Instagram on May 25.
He said he overheard a passenger telling a flight attendant there was a pigeon on the plane.
“Then the pilot got on the mic and confirmed a pigeon was on the plane, and said he had no experience with this situation,” Mr Caw said.
In an interview with US news outlet WCCO News, he recounted the pilot saying: “We have a wildlife situation on the plane”.
“Everyone at that point started laughing,” added Mr Caw, who was travelling from California to Madison, Wisconsin, when he boarded his connection at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport.
The bird was later spotted walking beneath the seats before baggage handlers boarded the aircraft and carried it off.
There was applause from the passengers, Mr Caw said, and a girl asked if she could pet the bird.
But as the plane began taxiing towards the runway, a second pigeon appeared and began flying wildly inside the cabin.
Mr Caw took a video of a man who tried to pluck the bird out of the air with his jacket, and later posted the footage on Instagram.
“It was caught, and we returned to the gate,” he said.
The Airbus A220, carrying 119 passengers and five crew members, departed from Minneapolis at 10.15am and landed at Madison, Wisconsin, at 12.17am, according to FlightAware.com.
Delta later apologised for the disruption.
In a statement to ABC News on May 27, the airline confirmed the flight was delayed by 56 minutes.
It said it “appreciates the careful actions of our people and our customers to safely remove two birds from the aircraft prior to departure, and we apologise to our customers for the delay in their travel”.
Mr Caw, taking the incident in his stride, said the birds were probably just tired of flying without snacks.
He quipped: “They didn’t know this flight to (Minnesota) is too short for Delta to offer beverage/snack service.”
