As delays at Sea-Tac Airport continue to pile up due to slippery runway conditions, one Midwestern pilot reassured his passengers he was more than capable of braving the icy takeoff moments before slowly sliding into several parked planes.
“Hello folks, this is your captain speaking. Well, it looks like these pilots from Seattle can’t take off on a sheet of ice, but don’t worry—I’m from the Midwest, so we’ll be airborne shortly,” said Captain Jerry Schmidt, attempting to steer while sliding sideways down the runway toward a fleet of parked Alaska Airlines planes. “Ope! Hit a bit of ice. Well folks, it might seem like we’re careening out of control to an amateur, but the trick is to turn the plane into the skid when you’re taking off. We might be a little sideways for the first 10,000 feet, but I’ll have us straightened out by the time we hit cruising altitude.”
After turning the runway into a round of bumper planes, Schmidt got back on the loudspeaker to announce the short delay and reaffirm his winter flying skill superiority.
“Well, we hit a bit of ground turbulence there but don’t worry—I’m from the Midwest, so as soon as I leave a polite note on all the planes we slammed into, we’ll be on our way,” said Schmidt, scribbling his insurance info on a dozen post-it notes. “And to think those silly air traffic controllers wanted to ground our plane. I’ll be gosh darned if I’m gonna sit here on the runway all day after I spent 5 hours de-icing the plane windows with an ice scraper.”
Local drivers were not immune to their own icy mishaps, however, as a Seattle-based ferry captain was forced to abandon his ferry after sliding a mile up 1st Avenue and crashing it into the Olympic Sculpture Garden.
