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Este tópico está trancado. =/
July 8th, 2009 • By Matt Molnar • Related • Filed Under
Not even a half day after severe thunderstorms wreaked havoc on local airport operations, this morning JFK is battling another force of mother nature: Turtles.
Perhaps washed out of their swampy airport-side homes by the rain, a swarm of turtles have wandered onto runway 4L/22R, forcing it to close and causing delays.
From the FAA:
General Departure Delays: Due to OTHER: RWY CONTAMINATION, traffic is experiencing Gate Hold and Taxi delays between 15 minutes and 29 minutes in length and decreasing.
“Normal” taxi times at JFK can approach an hour, so these turtles could mean a solid 90 minutes of rolling around the airport/safari.
JFK Airport is almost entirely surrounded by bays, creeks, swamps and undeveloped land, on which all sorts of wildlife live happily despite the rumbling of aircraft at all hours. It is not unusual to see bird spotters standing beside plane spotters in areas such as Broad Channel Island. Other residents include rabbits, snakes, Canada geese, feral cats, and the occasional runaway show dog.
UPDATE 12:57PM
Port Authority wildlife staff have moved the turtles to a safe location, though there could be residual delays as the shift from runway 4 to runway 31 operations created quite a bottleneck.
Stay tuned for further developments…
NYC Aviation
Not even a half day after severe thunderstorms wreaked havoc on local airport operations, this morning JFK is battling another force of mother nature: Turtles.
Perhaps washed out of their swampy airport-side homes by the rain, a swarm of turtles have wandered onto runway 4L/22R, forcing it to close and causing delays.
From the FAA:
General Departure Delays: Due to OTHER: RWY CONTAMINATION, traffic is experiencing Gate Hold and Taxi delays between 15 minutes and 29 minutes in length and decreasing.
“Normal” taxi times at JFK can approach an hour, so these turtles could mean a solid 90 minutes of rolling around the airport/safari.
JFK Airport is almost entirely surrounded by bays, creeks, swamps and undeveloped land, on which all sorts of wildlife live happily despite the rumbling of aircraft at all hours. It is not unusual to see bird spotters standing beside plane spotters in areas such as Broad Channel Island. Other residents include rabbits, snakes, Canada geese, feral cats, and the occasional runaway show dog.
UPDATE 12:57PM
Port Authority wildlife staff have moved the turtles to a safe location, though there could be residual delays as the shift from runway 4 to runway 31 operations created quite a bottleneck.
Stay tuned for further developments…
NYC Aviation
