While you’re sitting there wondering if you can just fly this goshdarn plane itself, there could be some very interesting reasons for your flight to be delayed. Sure, there are crew issues and mechanical problems, but there’s also the very real threat from live seafood seeking to escape their confines in a plane’s cargo hold.

A US Airways flight from New York LaGuardia to Charlotte Douglas International in North Carolina left about a half hour late last night, which in itself isn’t news, and really isn’t that bad.

But the reason for the delay is definitely going to be one of those stories passengers will relay with glee: Some live crabs from a shipment of seafood apparently escaped their container, spilling out into the plane’s cargo hold and forcing the airline to clean’em up before the flight could leave, reports the Charlotte Observer.

“They were small, not Alaskan King crabs,” a US Airways spokesman said, adding that there were “a decent number of them.”

The plane had originated in Charlotte, but it’s unclear who shipped the crabs and whether or not any crabby lives were ended prematurely that day, and if so, how many.

Live crabs get loose, delay US Airways flight to Charlotte [Charlotte Observer]

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