Bees on a plane! A swarm of bees piled onto the wing of an airplane, delaying a Delta flight for 3 hours.
Christophe Lehenaff/Getty Images, Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
- A Delta flight from Houston to Atlanta was delayed by three hours because bees swarmed around its wing.
- Photos and a video showed the large swarm of bees collecting on the tip of the plane's wing.
- Ground equipment was used to push back the airplane, and the bees were removed before takeoff.
A Delta flight from Texas to Georgia was delayed for three hours on Wednesday after other flying objects latched onto the plane — a swarm of bees.
"Bee-lieve it or not, Delta flight 1682 from Houston-Bush to Atlanta took a delay this afternoon after a friendly group of bees evidently wanted to talk shop with the winglet of our airplanes, no doubt to share the latest about flying conditions at the airport," Delta said in a statement provided to Insider.
The Airbus A320 flight with 92 passengers and five crew was delayed by around three hours to ensure the surface of the aircraft was clean and to prevent harming the bees, the airline said in its statement.
Passenger Anjali Enjeti documented the incident, sharing photos and videos of the bees on Twitter.
—Anjali Enjeti (she/her) (@AnjaliEnjeti) May 3, 2023
She also tweeted the airport crew's failed attempts at trying to shake off the bees, such as blowing exhaust from a Delta vehicle onto the wing tip.
—Anjali Enjeti (she/her) (@AnjaliEnjeti) May 3, 2023
"Bees were not impressed," Enjeti wrote in her tweet, which has been viewed over 166,000 times at press time.
After several failed attempts to ditch the bees, ground equipment was used to push back the airplane with no passengers on board, the airline said in its statement. This helped to remove the bees from the plane's wing.
The flight finally landed in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport at around 7.30 p.m. E.T., per FlightRadar24.
Honey bees typically swarm when an established colony has grown too crowded and the bees fly off to establish a new one. Swarms may contain several thousand bees and typically take place in late spring and early summer.
"We are told this kind of swarming is rare but not unheard of occurrence and can occur on virtually any outdoor structure in climates/environments where bees are found in nature," the airline said in its statement.
It added: "We apologize to our customers for the delay in their travel plans."
Enjeti did not immediately respond to Insider's queries sent outside regular working hours.