Photo: Peter KaminskiI have heard a lot of reasons for planes being delayed, but this was a new one. My Delta flight out of JFK was just about to push back from the gate when the captain made an announcement. He explained that there is a wheelchair on board every flight, and the one on this plane had had a malfunction – the handle broke, he said – which made it unusable. It didn’t seem to matter that no passengers on the flight had needed a wheelchair to board: the plane couldn’t take off, he said, until a replacement was brought on board.
How long could that possibly take? JFK is a big airport; there had to be lots of wheelchairs around.
The captain kept coming back onto the P.A. system to announce the progress. The ground crew found another chair, but it didn’t fit this plane. The ground crew heard of another plane nearby with a spare wheelchair, but that turned out to not be true.
The captain and the rest of the crew handled the delay about as well as it could be handled, but a few people got off the plane rather than keep waiting. Someone asked one flight attendant if the wheelchair was really so vital: couldn’t someone grant a dispensation to allow the flight to take off without it?
The flight attendant replied, a bit sternly, that the Americans With Disabilities Act expressly forbade the plane from taking off without the wheelchair. I know the A.D.A. hasn’t been a big winner in producing jobs for disabled workers and that it keeps doctors from treating disabled patients, but I didn’t know it could also ground a plane even if there are no disabled people on board. (I am not sure the flight attendant was 100% accurate; I don’t see a mention of this regulation in the A.D.A.)
Finally, 2.5 hours after our expected takeoff, Delta came up with another wheelchair that fit, and we headed for the runway.
On the bright side: the flight had wi-fi, so I was able to write this blog post at 35,000 feet, as we hurtled westward through the pitch-black sky.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
2 hours? I can see using the wheelchair as an excuse. Maybe there was something wrong with the plane and they did not want to upset passengers, or the Dunkin Donuts ran out of the pilot’s favorite snack. Either way, I’d bet good money there was something else going on.
MacGyver would have fixed the Wheelchair handle in a jiffy with Duct Tape or even Tooth Paste.
What happened to Yankee Ingenuity? It seems to take a back seat to Ben the Bureaucrat.
#s 2 and 7 are correct. #1 had better hope his own ability is permanent. (I’m not disabled — so far — but I have been temporarily disabled and I know people who are permanently so.)
I think the focus on ADA is misplaced here. I’m not familiar with the ADA rules as they relate to airframes, so I can’t say whether or not this was in fact an ADA issue or not. But, I can tell you that there are any number of small, seemingly innocuous things that can prevent a flight from taking off. For example, if there is a seat on the aircraft that will not fully return to the upright position (close don’t count), you’re not going anywhere until it’s fixed. This has nothing to do with the ADA. The fact of the matter is, commercial operators (Part 121) have a sterling safety record and they’re are zealous in protecting it – their business depends on it. As the freakonomics folks have pointed out before, one accident and all of a sudden folks develop very irrational fears of engines falling off wings. So, to maintain that safety record the airlines put a lot of effort into making sure their employees sweat the small stuff. From their vantage point, their is no unimportant safety regulation.
I went to China in June and about 2 hours into the 16 hour leg from LA to Tokyo a food service cart fell over on one of the flight attendant’s ankles.You could hear her scream anywhere in the plane.I’m pretty sure it broke her ankle but we were already over the Pacific so she toughed it out until we landed where they wheeled her out on the plane’s onboard wheelchair.No one else on the plane was disabled.
Speaking of ridiculous flight delay excuses, I was on an NWA flight out of MSP where, after the plane had pulled onto the taxi way, an announcement came over the PA that the pilot from the previous flight had left his glasses on board. Our pilot explained that the forgetful pilot could not fly without his glasses. Our plane headed to a deserted part of the airfield and waited 30 minutes for a portable jet way (truck with stairway) to allow a mechanic to come aboard and grab the glasses. It then took another 15 minutes to get back in the departure queue. Total waste of NWA’s fuel and passengers’ time.
This is ridiculous. If someone needs to be carried, people will volunteer. I was on a hike on the appalacian trail where someone broke their leg and I saw total strangers (including me) volunteer carry her out for over a mile of mountain trail, staying with her until an ambulance could come.
Not sure whether the ridiculousness here is the ADA or just a feature of Federal Aeronautics regulations, which I’ve heard do require absolutely fidelity to every detail. It’s quite possible that the ADA requires accomodations for disabled flight passengers but the aeronautics requirements prevent any plane from taking off unless it complies with the absolute letter of the law. Does anyone know?
you really nailed the hidden side of this.