Airplanes & Ducks, Oh My!

This is the email I sent to co-workers concerning my trip back to Nashville after this past Thanksgiving:


I was at the Central Wisconsin airport Monday night to get on a flight to Detroit – leg one of my trip back to Nashville. I was scheduled to get to Nashville at approximately 11pm, back home in plenty of time to be here at work on Tuesday (yesterday).

Well, we’re all sitting there as waiting passengers do, when we get news of a delay – our plane still isn’t at the airport. It’s expected to land in half an hour (or whatever), pushing our departure back about 45 minutes.

So… I’m ticked-off because this Wisc/Detroit flight was scheduled to land in Detroit at 9:30PM, and my flight from Det to Nash was scheduled to depart at 10pm. IF the Wisc/Det flight had been on time, I would have had to hurry to make it to my Det/Nash flight. So I was frustrated.

So anyway, we wait, and wait, and wait. No plane.

Finally, maybe an hour later, we receive notification that our plane – the one we were waiting for to take us to Detroit – had skidded off the runway, into the ditch, and that it was stuck. The flight was canceled.

So they tell us to re-book for the next day, which we all get in line to do.

So we’re standing in line when we notice a plane on the tarmac.

At first we see it in profile… then it turns left, so that we have a perfect view of the nose of the plane.

The nose is crumpled – totally dented.

About that time we receive news that the plane, at an altitude of three thousand feet, and only five miles from landing at the Central Wisc airport, had hit three ducks.

The ducks had crumpled the nose and taken out the hydraulics.

They were lucky to land, according to airport staff.

So while we were frustrated that our plane was inoperable… when I consider what might have happened, it sort of takes the edge off the frustration.

So I booked tickets for yesterday afternoon-evening, endured an hour-long delay in Minneapolis (lol – I hate Northwest), and got home very late last night.