A bee swarm on the winglet of Delta Air Lines Airbus A320 was problematic, but the solution was rather simple: just turn on the engine. Instead, Delta delayed the flight for four hours as it sat wondering what to do. Keep climbing?
Delta Air Lines Bee Delay
As first noted by Eye of the Flyer, on Wednesday May 3, 2023, Delta flight DL1682 arrived from Atlanta (ATL) into Houston (IAH) and was scheduled to return to Atlanta (Delta oddly uses the same flight numbers for multiple flights). The flight was operated by an A320, with registration N399NW.
Maybe it was the Georgia peaches onboard, but bees decided to congregate on the triangular winglet of the A320…hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.
So Delta delayed the flight…apparently hoping they would just buzz off.
My flight leaving Houston is delayed because bees have congregated on the tip of one of the wings. They won’t let us board until they remove the bees. But how on earth will this happen? Won’t they leave the wing when we take off? pic.twitter.com/DhodBz0m5n
— Anjali Enjeti (she/her) (@AnjaliEnjeti) May 3, 2023
A beekeeper was called. Pointless.
Pest control was called in. Pointless. They would not spray the plane.
The fire department called. Pointless. They said they had no water hose…at Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport? Right.
So everyone just sat there.
You remember Wee Willy Wasp on my JetBlue flight? Once the plane started moving, he buzzed off.
Well, Delta needed the gate for another flight so it was eventually decided the A320 would be moved to another place.
But lo and behold, when the engines were turned on, the bees immediately flew away. #Rocket_Science
Omg y’all. Entire the flight crew deplaned. Delta decided to give our gate to another flight. As soon as our plane’s engine turned on, THE BEES LEFT!!! All Delta had to do was TURN ON THE PLANE pic.twitter.com/gILlJ8EMZg
— Anjali Enjeti (she/her) (@AnjaliEnjeti) May 3, 2023
I’ve taken a light-hearted look at this situation, but there are some genuine concerns to hundreds of bees being sucked into the engine of a plane. The incident is not unprecedented, with a similar incident occurring on an F-22 Raptor, where the stealth aircraft was no match for 20,000 bees. Perhaps a three-hour delay is better than a longer mechanical delay due to an engine filled with bees…
![a group of bees on a building](https://liveandletsfly.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Delta-Air-Lines-Bees.jpg)
But I would have thought that first turning on the engine would have been a no-brainer.
Read this on Twitter and was shocked not only at the stupidity of Delta and its staff but even more so the holier than thou idea that the welfare of the bees was more important than the flight. I very much doubt that the bees would have affected the safe take off of the plane, but in any case they should have been removed by any means necessary.
Bees and wasps have been known to bring down commercial airliners. They can plug-up crucial sensors. The airline did this to protect the passengers!
Have you ever heard of an “angle of attack” sensor? Did you ever wonder how it works? If the hole in the sensor is plugged by bee/wasp activity… the sensor doesn’t work. Duh.
I have a long-time friend who asks this question frequently:
“How ignorant can a person be and still breathe?”
Oh… hey… the idiot is Mak! Imagine that.
Google “dunning Kruger effect”.
You can be so ignorant that you don’t know how ignorant you are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
One more thing:
A surprisingly high percentage of Americans suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect.
It’s unbelievable but true.
Here’s the summary of the Dunning-Kruger effect for all you dumb people:
Smart people under-estimate their own intelligence. They don’t think they are as smart as they are.
Stupid people over-estimate their own intelligence. They think they know WAY more than they actually know.
Simple.
Here’s another thing to think about….
If you are of average intelligence, that means that 50% of people are stupider than you!
But, it also means that you are pretty f-ing stupid. Get educated! Read stuff. Think! Learn!
There’s a thing called books! And you can read them on the Internet.
Well now I see perhaps why my consecutive comments are not well received but as to educated/read/think/learn, been working on it–for years.
Wondering how long it took for those bees to get there. Usually planes land, get to the gate and leave really soon so how did that happen? The US is becoming a weird place. People are way too soft, everything is a big deal, everything hurts people’s feelings, welfare of bees, BS of this, BS of that and that is why dictators fromRussia and China are taking advantage. I definitely think we need a huge recession, maybe a war so all this BS will go away.
Leave then
No. I will fight to change it. Losers like you will be the ones leaving.
Nope. Sorry. I was born here. Do I move to other countries and complain endlessly about them?
I used to live in a red state and it sucked balls so I moved to a blue state and I’m quite happy. That’s how it works.
the “I was born here” from a liberal.. These comments write themselves, lol. Anyway.. hoping your blue state isn’t near these issues. https://i.postimg.cc/sxvyTFdp/IMG-5845.jpg. Might need to start calling you Billy Buttigieg.
I’m cool with immigration, but don’t come here and complain about everything and say things need to change, and tell people whos families have been here for generations that they need to leave. If I moved abroad and started telling everyone how their country should be run I’d be an ugly American, and the outcome probably for me probably wouldnt be good.
Yea… Red states are doing great…Mississippi and Alabama… the center of the business world
“say things need to change, and tell people whos families have been here for generations that they need to leave”
That is exactly what is happening though, and much more on the left than the right. Yes, there might be an uprising of conservative support with Latinos in Florida and Texas, but overall we have many leftists relocating here, legally or not, with their many demands to implement socialism and the rest.
One of my good friends from Kazakhstan is a citizen now via green card. She agrees with all of the points that I make and Santastico makes. I don’t mean this an insult, but many foreigners have a better grip on the issues than most here, not being subjected to the propaganda and narratives that Americans are.
That’s where you are wrong. I am not asking things to change. I am asking things to go back to where they were 25 years ago when I came here. There were no snowflakes.
Why stop there? Why not roll things back to the 1700s?
25 years ago homophobia, racism, sexism, etc, were as challenged as they were today.
Granted, bees seem to trigger into whining about wishing things were more conservative, so maybe that’s the problem, not railing against others you perceive to be snowflakes…
Save the bees. Or yeah just keep on keeping on and bring back the murder hornets.
@ Aaron
60% of pedophiles are lgbt.
Ah, posting your usual factually incorrect nonsense as Chad this time, I see.
Exactly, San. Thanks for fighting. https://i.postimg.cc/Z5PHDCLL/IMG-5914.jpg
@Billy, blue states policies and economies are destroying the country. if you haven’t noticed. You may be happier now, but for how long? Sustainability matters. https://i.postimg.cc/m2YpKXLM/IMG-5913.jpg
economics*
LOL!!! Enjoy your blue sewer. I was not born here but I have the same rights as you have so deal with it.
I will enjoy my blue sewer, it’s where the high paying jobs, good food, and wide ranging entertainment options are.. Hey, I hope no female family members of yours have any pregnancy complications because they are goners in your red paradise
Billy you have to rise above the level of red and blue thinking. It’s micro. Macro > micro. I am a broken record but you must rise above it eventually. All of the division including race and political affiliation is a distraction from the more pressing issue(s).
Control of the narrative = power
When you are blind, what do you see?
They want you divided.
Divided by religion.
Divided by race.
Divided by sex.
Divided by political affiliation.
Divided by class.
When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those ‘different’ from you, not those responsible [controllers].
Divided you are weak.
Divided you pose no threat to their control.
https://i.postimg.cc/JnhfxFG3/IMG-7153.png
Billy, don’t you know blue states policies and economies are destroying the country? But also, you need to rise above the level of red and blue thinking.
@Aaron, that is a 3D way of thinking. There’s levels to enlightenment and ascension. One must level set with the truth first of where we are now (blue states 100% destroying) and then we can move on to what I am proposing (ascension to realize that this isn’t the main issue)
Or perhaps it’s 1D or 2D, unclear. I’m not great on the meanings for all the dimensions but it’s certainly not a 4D or 5D way of thinking.
Was pointing out how you were contradicting yourself, but I see as with many things that just pole vaulted over your head.
@aaron – Sequential thinking
More like Contradictory Thinking lol
You leave, people like you are in the minority.
Is that why the GOP hasn’t won the popular vote in 20 years?
Bruh. You don’t want to go to elections. Your point *might* be valid if elections were fair and Dominion et al wasn’t programmed to flip to 51% – 49% in favor of the left, in so many races, as you see constantly. PLEASE!
This divide is not nearly as big as you think it is and you TRULY are in the minority!
A vocal minority, I’ll give you that, but still a minority.
e can revisit this topic once elections are shored up. In the meantime, there’s plenty of info about elections not being secure.
— TO BE CLEAR —
— FACT: —
— It’s not that there is no evidence the election stolen, but that no court has the guts to hear the evidence! They dismissed the cases–
NOT!
the!
evidence!
They refused to look at it, because the price of getting involved was too high!
*THIS* is how evil destroys a republic!–
I certainly wouldn’t want to be the judges in Maricopa handling the multiple suits, for example, We the People Arizona Alliance v Maricopa et al, or Kari Lake v Katie Hobbs et al and the many others from patriots like Abe Hamadeh and Blake Masters.
If Maricopa Superior Court isn’t fair, Lake is going to SCOTUS. I wouldn’t want that checkmate, but hey, let’s see what happens. God bless that woman.
—
Top U.S. Voting Machine Company Admits to Backdoors in Products
https://adamlevin.com/2018/07/19/top-u-s-voting-machine-company-admits-to-backdoors-in-products/
This divide is not nearly as *small* as you think it is*
Bee Lives Matter!!!
Continued fails. Have a bud light. https://i.postimg.cc/PJ4ZQwHL/IMG-5912.jpg
other Delta news, unverified but interesting if true, https://i.postimg.cc/HxPVvQxR/77876.jpg
tried to look into this but these search results do not open the described links
https://i.postimg.cc/8kr93SPc/Screen-Shot-2023-05-05-at-12-25-23-AM.png
which I have literally never seen before. odd
Everyone here is focusing on the wrong topic. The real concern should be…what First Class flights will the Duke of Montecito use to fly to the coronation and back. Even more concerning…can UA keep those French Fries warm and crispy in First Class? Oh for the sake of humanity…
@ David M. And I thought I was the only one suffering an existential crisis!
God God. This is what click bait gets you Matthew, and since when did you become such an expert on the impact that a bee swarm might have on a jet engine … at any time of operation. I hate to see you become another Gary Leff, but you’re heading in that direction with some of your recent posts. Please, don’t go there; you’re too good a blogger for that.
I am newer to reading VTFW religiously instead of sporadically and I like Gary, unless he uses a ghostwriter, in which case I guess I like them. I don’t agree with all of his takes–like regarding AI–but overall he’s comical, which I appreciate. And the comments are funny sometimes too, like on his recent AA/Sabre article. If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry. All of the bloggers on boarding area make their own contributions in their own way. To each their own.
Joel, do really think it is unreasonable to question why they didn’t use try to turn on the engine and see if the bees would buzz off? They were not on the engine, but on the winglet…very unlikely they would have been sucked in. It just seems like a very common-sense solution…I’m very guilty of a lot of clickbait, but I actually didn’t think this story was one of them.
@Aaron, Billy, Fantastico — nsfw language but you get the idea.. fly 😉
chorus
I really hate to break it to you but your life’s being played with
You have not witnessed the world cause you’re stuck in the Matrix
Everything we have been taught was all a lie
Open your eyes, open your mind, and fly
At this point I can’t decide whether to pity you for your nutjob posts or just laugh at you.
Or both.
xoxo
Both it is lol
Or if you want a song without language. Either way, do better..please
LOL…I only clicked on this article because I wondered how long it would take for one of the Trump Trolls to politicize bees on a wing. And needless to say, I got my answer…comment 2.
They must be really busy doing absolutely nothing to have the time to politicize bees on a wing.
I understand everyone wants their points and miles and travel experiences only blog black. I get it. Do you think I really feel like talking about this stuff myself? Does Santastico or any other reasonable commenter? NO. It just simply is reality for our world right now. When you have ASD it makes it hard to lie and be quiet when gross negligence or gross wrongs are occurring, despite that being the much easier way out. I do believe, in hindsight, you will see that the only reason that aviation as a whole will even be partially intact in the future is if we actually do talk about things that matter: right here and right now. I did not vote for Trump in 2016 however Robinette has had his chance. If you wanted better candidates, then provide them. “Trump Trolls” didn’t decide, for example, to change decades of precedent for a first class medical. If you didn’t want us in aviation, you shouldn’t have made egregious errors. Trump Trolls have friends and family in the industry and/or they travel, too. Why the f are reasonable people in this world insisting we shut up about S A F E T Y?
Also, a repost but yeah, Trump Trolls will try to see what we can do about this, too:
https://i.postimg.cc/L5jt4vsZ/26-D7-A829-84-CC-4607-A132-E2-D8-E905229-F.jpg
“Do you think I really feel like talking about this stuff myself? Does Santastico?”
Yes and yes.
Why was the beekeeper pointless? My neighbor’s mailbox got swarmed– it has a wooden frame/housing, and they were concerned that the swarm would settle there. They called a beekeeper and that swarm was relocated in a few hours.
Was it that the wing was too high up, or the beekeeper just laughed and wouldn’t come out, or is it just pointless because really they just needed to turn on the engine.
According to other stories, the beekeeper wanted to spray something on the winglet and the pilots would not allow it.
Matthew Klit
I wonder what the comments would have been if the critters were on the right (starboard) side instead left.