Terrapins trigger tarmac troubles

NEW YORK – About 150 turtles crawled onto the tarmac at New York’s Kennedy airport Wednesday in search of beaches to lay their eggs, delaying dozens of flights, aviation authorities said.

The slow-motion stampede began about 6:45 a.m., and within three hours there were so many turtles on Runway 4L and nearby taxiways that controllers were forced to move departing flights to another runway.

“We ceded to Mother Nature,” said Ron Marsico, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the airport.

Workers from the Port Authority and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were scooping up turtles and moving them across the airport, he said. Flight delays averaged about 30 minutes, the FAA said.

The migration of diamondback terrapin turtles happens every year at Kennedy, which is built on the edge of Jamaica Bay and a federally protected park. In late June or early July the animals heave themselves out of the bay and head toward a beach to lay their eggs.

The peak of the turtle trouble usually lasts a few days, Marsico said.

For aviation officials, wayward wildlife is a serious concern at JFK and nearby LaGuardia Airport, which both sit on shorelines populated by geese, turtles, ducks, frogs and other animals. In January 2009 a U.S. Airways plane bound for Charlotte, N.C., was forced to land in the Hudson River after it hit a flock of birds and lost power in both engines. All 155 passengers and crew members were rescued.

Roadkill on runways can sometimes make the surface slippery, but there are no reports of turtles damaging a plane at JFK in recent years, the FAA database shows.