An American Airlines flight was delayed and passengers were asked to exit the aircraft…because of a moth infestation onboard.
Moth Infestation Onboard American Airlines A321
Upon boarding an American Airlines Airbus A321 aircraft on May 20, 2023, passengers discovered a problem: moths onboard. In fact, Dr. Kyla McMullen tweeted that the plane was “infested” with them. When it became clear that this would not be quick and easy clean-up, more drastic action was taken, which McMullen captured on video.
As the captain explained, the problem was both a “safety and comfort issue” and upon consultation with maintenance, he required all passengers to exit the aircraft so that the moths could be efficiently eliminated.
In all my years of flying… I have never had this happen 😂😂#mothsOnAPlane pic.twitter.com/ZDo6dhi8Ld
— Dr. Kyla McMullen (K-Mac) (@Dr_Kyla) May 20, 2023
That wasn’t the only delay for Dr. McMullen.
Her connection was on an Embraer-175 aircraft, which also experienced issues requiring an aircraft change.
In classic AA fashion, however, the new aircraft needed to be refueled but after 45 minutes of waiting the fuel truck still had not shown up, promoting a complain from the captain. Plus, the new aircraft needed new tires. It made for a long day, to be sure.
Second plane needed new tires. They moved us to a plane with no fuel. They keep calling for fuel but no luck. It’s been 45 minutes. @AmericanAir get it together. pic.twitter.com/wPlGxrAsNu
— Dr. Kyla McMullen (K-Mac) (@Dr_Kyla) May 20, 2023
Nice.
But a question: how does an aircraft become “infested” with moths in the first place?
CONCLUSION
An American Airlines flight was delayed due to a moth infestation onboard. While flight delays may be common these days, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a delay caused by moths. Then again, we just reported on a bee delay on Delta Air Lines so I guess it should not come as a huge surprise.
(H/T: View From The Wing)
There is currently a moth migration–my house in Denver has dozens at any given time outside the last week or so, and we usually have none. They’re not dangerous though, just an inconvenience
We’ve seen an uptick at our home this week, now that you mention it.
My question is more related to the time that it takes for an airline to react to problems. For example, last week we arrived at the airport on a Delta flight, got to the gate and it took us 15 minutes to deplane since there was no gate agent available to move the jetway. How is that possible? Didn’t she know a plane had just landed and was coming to that gate and she needed to be ready to move it? Was she in the bathroom? Was she on her phone? I simply don’t get it. In the case of a fuel truck take 45 minutes to show up is unacceptable. Get 30 seconds late to the gate with the door closed and see what happens to you but on the other hand it seems airlines have absolutely no sense of urgency.
I can understand the fuel truck issue in this instance a bit better– assumedly fuel trucks have a certain schedule to keep, and this being an unanticipated job was something that has to get worked in… Transferring fuel does take a certain amount of time regardless of the urgency. And as best I can tell from looking out of windows, all aviation fuel truck operators are selected primarily by their uniformly slow pace of movement.
As for the jetway, many years ago I was waiting on a long delayed flight. When it finally arrived there was no one to move the jetway, so the plane just sat there at the gate for a while. The cause of the delay was announced publicly. When a person finally showed up to move the jetway, some folks clapped. The jetway operator promptly crashed the jetway into the plane, damaging the plane. No more clapping. No more flying either. My wife and I spent a lovely evening at some regional jet gate at the end of O’Hare.
Reports this week of Cosmo Las Vegas rooms being infested with moths and being 100% booked customers had to wait while room was fumigated.
Also no mention of the route. Hopefully she heeded the words of the NAACP and wasn’t headed to Florida.
Similar thing happened to UA yesterday. I had a friend on ORD-FCO last night that was delayed like 7 hours because they found cockroaches on the plane.
I had a flight once where when catering opened the back door all these beetles started flying in through the back door. Inflight calls and sure enough the things are all over the place. They are quite rightly skeeved out by this and the only way to fumigate the plane was to take it out of service. This created a multi hour delay while we waited on another airplane to come in.
AA probably left doors open at night to air out the plane without turning off the interior lights. Moths were attracted to the light.
Amazing photo
There back… Attack of the killer moths!