The 78 diamondback terrapins were picked up, put into a pickup truck and removed from the runway, said John Kelly, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. They were originally spotted around 8:30 a.m. by a pilot, who radioed the tower.
"It's not unprecedented, but it's not at all common," he said.
He said that the turtles were perhaps attracted to the sand along one side of the runway, which juts into the water. "They tend to look for sand while they are mating," he said. "Presumably, all these turtles were feeling amorous." It is unclear whether the turtles pair off, or if the numbers indicated it was a group activity, he said.
We might be more forgiving of airport delays if they all came a similarly cute and cuddly story.
Turtle Brigade Delays Flights at J.F.K. [The New York Times]
(Photo: dooleymtv)
PHL had to make allowances for the special turtle population they have there (red-bellied turtles). [www.phl.org]
I think they ended up building large 'turtle passages' so they could travel under the runways. Maybe turtles like airports? Or we like to build airports where turtles are?
]]>"I'm nauseous."
"I'm nauseous."
]]>@jamar0303: @jamar0303: Answer - yes, the solution is more runways. There are three main problems with building more runways
1. A little thing called wake turbulence. (closely space runways < 2500 ft apart)
2. NIMBYS
3. Lots - o - Money
@3DaysTillTheState_GitEmSteveDave: Well, I was using tortoise logic to make a point....
]]>Map here, click on map:
http://www.nps.gov/gate/
Yeah, yours was better.
]]>We can't let our airplanes be delayed or the terrapins win!
]]>@Jon Bothe: These turtles are neither the first nor the last to spend a significant portion of their honeymoon sitting on the tarmac at JFK.
]]>Second. EWR needs to be sounded out. It is pronounced like Eeyore from Winnih the Pooh.
Third, they built the new tower like 3 foot ball fields away, with the terminals between it and the runways. It reduced visibility and efficiency that it gained from new equipment. Blah.
]]>The amount of money involved with contracts for redoing our ATC equipment is huge... I'm sure we can expect the standards of ethics to follow accordingly!
]]>we can learn a lot from turtles. apparently they take their time when getting it on.
as for me.... i'm off to the sand to "do the turtle".
lol!
-dave
]]>The report you're talking about seems pretty reasonable to me so far (I started skimming after the first half or so) -- the bit that seems to be lacking is the consideration of the alternative. I would say either the system has to massively increase capacity (which is what the author is saying, which requires more automation), or else the number of flights has to be drastically reduced, probably my making it very expensive for regional jets to use major airports. You'd no longer be able to fly directly between minor cities, and I don't know that there'd be a lot of consumer support for that proposal.
If you read the report with a less (understandably) biased view, it's not blaming union controllers in the same way one might blame union painters for the high cost of new construction in New York City -- it's saying human controllers can only perform so many operations per unit of time, and increasing system capacity is going to require a non-human solution.
]]>End Sarcasm
Really it should be called, "Airline over-scheduling delays." Only one airplane can be actively using the runway at one time. So if there are more than 5 air carrier planes waiting, its a airline scheduling problem.
Disclosure: I am an air traffic controller.
]]>