JFK Airport Runway Shut Down By Pregnant Turtles, Reports Say

JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NY — Looks like it's Diamondback Terrapin nesting season again at JFK Airport. Several airplane passengers stuck on the JFK tarmac Friday afternoon reported on social media that their planes were being held due to multiple turtles crossing the runway.

Twitter user @vonSpawn wrote just after 4 p.m.: "Im taxiing in my plane because there are turtles on the runway. Perhaps the only excuse I have ever found endearing."

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Another user wrote: "My plane just got held up on the runway because there were turtles crossing. I'm not even mad." And a third said: "Apparently there are TURTLES on the runway at JFK causing our delay to deplane."

Airport officials did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

However, Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery reported around 4:15 p.m. — also via Twitter — that "a source very familiar with the situation" told her "a plane is currently stopped on the tarmac at JFK due to turtles on the runway."

This wouldn't be the first turtle takeover at JFK.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, reported around this time last year that more than 500 turtles — of the Diamondback Terrapin variety — had to be carried off JFK runways and returned to nearby marshes during their summer 2016 nesting season.

See also: Canadian Arrested At U.S. Border With 50 Turtles Stuffed In His Underwear

A team of local scientists, commissioned by the Port Authority to investigate why turtles like JFK so much, believe it might have to do with the sandy soil surrounding the airport — which is above the high-tide line, and therefore might ostensibly seem like a safe place to lay one's eggs, should one be a Diamondback Terrapin.

“The original airport planners never could have imagined that all the sandy fill they put down would one day become the perfect nesting habitat for terrapins,” Laura Francoeur, head of the investigation, said last summer.

Photo courtesy of the Port Authority