Travel Tips

Icarus Award: Happy Endings Edition

Locations in this article:  Atlanta, GA Dublin, Ireland Las Vegas, NV

Many fail, but few are redeemed. This week’s Icarus Awards are for everyone who likes happy endings. Failures are reversed, a job is restored and a kitten found. Of course, there are a few new errors awaiting redemption or your mockery. Vote for a happy ending or a fresh new failure in our poll below.

Tell Peter about your Icarus stories in the comments. Find another travel failure and you’ll win an exclusive Peter Greenberg prize.

First Lady Flub

Last year an air traffic controller allowed a plane carrying the first lady Michelle Obama to fly too close to a military cargo jet. Turns out that was just one of the controller’s six recorded “coordination errors,” which include the two violations of Federal Aviation Administration procedures that happened during the First Lady incident. A National Transportation Safety Board report released Thursday noted that the controller, who remains unnamed, had been relieved of air traffic control duties and sent for retraining. Ready for a dubiously happy ending? The controller is now approved to handle air traffic again.

Personal Item Privacy

Perhaps blogger Jill Filipovic was looking to make her own happy ending when she packed her personal massager for a weekend flight to Dublin, Ireland. Instead after taking off from Newark and landing in Dublin, Filipovic opened her suitcase to unpack and found a handwritten note on a TSA form encouraging her to “Get [her] freak on girl.” Offended by the privacy violation, Filipovic naturally turned to Twitter, where she tweeted out a picture of the note with the comment, “Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA. Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag. Wow.”

Duct Tape Disaster

Penny-pinching Ryanair is in the midst of a duct tape scandal. On Monday, British papers were the first to report that a Ryanair flight from Britain’s Stansted airport to Riga, Latvia was forced to return to the UK after 20 minutes because the tape securing the cockpit’s windscreen had come loose. Passengers reported seeing the ground crew using “duct tape or gaffer tape” to secure the edges of the window. According to Irish authorities the new window seal was being secured with tape merly as a precaution.

Leaving Las Vegas

Another week, another disruptive passenger. This week 60-year old Atlanta-resident Richard Joel Garber caused such a ruckus on a Delta flight out of Las Vegas, the plane was forced to return to the airport. Garber reached for the emergency door handle but was wrestled to the ground by his fellow passengers. According to passenger reports, Garber made two attempts for the emergency door before he was subdued. He is now being charged with crimes aboard an aircraft and interfering with flight crew, both federal offenses.

The Cat Came Back

August’s JFK pet failure is now being reborn as October’s heart-warming animal rescue. Yesterday Jack the cat, who was lost by American Airlines on August 25, was found alive and well. Jack, whose cage door had come open prior to boarding his August flight, was found in the customs room at JFK. Jack was dehydrated and looked a little skinny but he is now being flown back to California to be reunited with his owner and kitty brother.

The Kentucky Fried Failure won last week’s Icarus Award. Check out past winners in our Icarus Award section. And vote here for this week’s most worthy contender:

[polldaddy poll=”5620833″]

by Lily J. Kosner for Petergreenberg.com

Feature Image credit Bigstock 

Related links: Feministe, Smarter Traveler, Jaunted, Huffington Post