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.
"Apparently, this is something the tower has
experienced before," said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters.
"I guess it's the season for spawning."
The invasion began
unfolding, slowly, at around 8:30am, when an American Eagle flight crew reported
seeing three turtles while taxiing out for departure. Before long, a chorus of
pilots was radioing the tower to report turtles either on the end of a runway
that juts out into the water, or approaching on the
grass.
The FAA halted flights for about 12 minutes shortly
before 9am while some of the turtles were cleared away, then quit using the
runway entirely after getting new reports of "massive numbers" of turtles on the
tarmac, Peters said.
Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey spokesman John Kelly said airport crews gathered up the turtles in about
35 minutes.
He identified the turtles as Diamondback
terrapins, a species common to Jamaica Bay, which surrounds the airport. The
turtles appeared to be about 20cm long and weigh about a kilogram
each.
Jets hit turtles a few times each year at JFK,
usually in the final days of June or earliest days in July, according to the
FAA's wildlife strike database. There have been no recent reports of the strikes
causing any damage to an airplane.
AP