We've got motherf***ing turtles on the plane!

Today's horrific travel story of the day. A little girl brings her pet turtle (a 2-inch red slider) onto the flight. Makes it past security. Makes it past the gate agent. A flight attendant tells her to stow the cage under the seat.
And then, as the plane is taxiing, another flight attendant sounds the alarm and saves everyone from the .00001 percent chance of a salmonella outbreak. Plane returns to terminal. Little girl is told to get rid of the turtle and throws it in the trash.
The turtle was rescued by another gate agent and eventually returned to the little girl. So there was a happy ending.
And it was good to see the powertripping flight attendants stop this potentially devastating bio-terrorism attack. Whatever happened to common sense?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/06/24/national/a160606D29.DTL&type=travel

 

And the moral of the story is check with your airline to see if you can travel with a turtle. I had to leave fish at an airport once.

 

She was waved through three layers of security before the turtle was red-flagged, and the turtle was in a cage. Seems like, even if she didn't check ahead, there was no reason to think anything was wrong until the second flight attendant broke out the FAA rulebook.

 

Imagine the person who threw something away and saw something moving in the trash.

 

Cowabunga, AirTran!

 

we dont have a graphic for this

 

Need a graphic for a cheap little turtle you say?