A display of turtle power occurred at Narita Airport (NRT) in Japan on September 24, 2021, after a turtle was seen wandering along Runway A of the airport.
At 11:35 local time, a pilot who was about to take off spotted the turtle on the 4,000-meter Runway A of the airport. Narita International Airport then closed the runway for 12 minutes and took the turtle to safety.
The turtle, which is 30 centimeters long and weighs 2.1 kilograms, is said to be a likely inhabitant of the airport’s stormwater management pond, located 100 meters from the runway.
This is the turtle that wandered onto the runway at Narita airport yeah, halting the flight of a turtle painted aircraft
— Spoon & Tamago (@Johnny_suputama) September 25, 2021
pic.twitter.com/5ZdB2oAELO
The interruption caused a 15-minute delay to the departure of five flights. Coincidentally, one of these is an ANA (All Nippon Airways) A380 in a sea turtle livery.
The ANA sea turtle livery was debuted in July 2021 to celebrate the carrier’s service to Hawaii. After the pandemic halted international flights, ANA had to cancel its 14 weekly flights to Honolulu and has instead used the sea turtle aircraft for domestic routes.
ANA seemed to take the turtle-induced delay in good stride. “In Hawaii, sea turtles are seen as bringing good luck, and we hope this turtle that came to see the flight off signals a bright future,” the airline said in a statement to the local press.