Airline Loses Luggage, Pilot, Wing

MINNEAPOLIS- Delta Airlines apologized to customers and shareholders Tuesday in a public statement aiming to ease concerns about complaints regarding problems on Flight 421, including the accidental misplacement of several dozen checked luggage items, a tail rudder, and Captain Gary Nunemaker, a forty-two year old aviator and Air Force veteran from Pensacola, Florida.

“We are sorry for any convenience that may have been caused by missing luggage, and we will cooperate to return all items that were mistakenly sent to San Diego, London, Rio de Janeiro, Seoul, or Nanjing,” said Delta spokesperson Rita Farshad. “We're also working on getting little Brooke Edgerton and her coloring books out of Fuzhou, China and safely back to her parents.”

Farshad told reporters that Captain Nunemaker and his co-pilot Carla Prikow called from Nairobi to say they were fine.

Flight attendants also told passengers they were looking into the sudden disappearance of Engine #3 about halfway through the trip from Washington's Dulles International Airport to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. The crew remained unconcerned about the engine, which was reportedly in need of maintenance and “may have just stepped out for a smoke during the flight.” FAA investigators are currently searching for any hints to the engine's whereabouts on the portside wing of the plane, which passengers noticed was also missing about 20 minutes after takeoff. The wing reunited with the fuselage during a layover in LAX in the recently-rediscovered Terminal 3, although there was a slight delay at a security checkpoint because it tried to carry more than three fluid ounces of jet fuel aboard the aircraft.

The pilot and copilot considered the delay routine because the plane's black box radioed ahead from Chicago to inform them of its safe arrival at the destination.

Delta officials were quick to point out that similar problems happen to all airlines. Industry analysts are familiar with the 1995 disappearance of New York's La Guardia Airport, which showed up in Denver after a custodian found it in a closet. Other observers point to the infamous United Flight 5811, whose passengers all lost their lunch during takeoff, or a 1981 incident in which President Reagan crippled the air travel industry by misplacing 11,345 air traffic controllers. Later, President Clinton caused a similar fiasco by forgetting where he left the FAA when he was “preoccupied” in the Oval Office, although he later smoothed things over with the industry by pulling a few strings at the Mile High Club. In fact, in the early history of air travel, Orville and Wilbur Wright forgot to install emergency exits and no-smoking signs on several of their first flights.

Although Delta is still processing claims for damaged luggage, the company is optimistic about customer satisfaction, as several of the most costly accidents on Flight 421 happened to travelers who also went missing or were flown to the wrong airport.

Other items lost in transit include four coffee mugs, a flight attendant's virginity, the landing gear, and a lavatory sink, as well as rows 4, 5, 7, and 22.