(Peacock: I have ticket! How dare you!)
A United Airlines passenger who tried to take her emotional support peacock with her on a cross-country flight has had the bird turned away by the airline because of health and safety concerns.
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New York City-based photographer and performance artist Ventiko says she bought a ticket for her peacock, Dexter, so he would have his own seat on Sunday's flight from New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport to Los Angeles.
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A spokeswoman for Chicago-based United says the peacock didn't meet guidelines for several reasons, including its size and weight. Spokeswoman Andrea Hiller says the issues had been explained to the passenger three times "before they arrived at the airport."
Dexter's Instagram account notes his "human friends" will be driving him cross-country.
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FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane carrying two people crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday and burst into flames, authorities said. No survivors have been found.
The plane took off in the morning from Fairbanks International Airport. It crashed about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from there and “slid into a steep hill on the bank of the river where it caught fire,” according to Alaska State Troopers.
Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board's Alaska regional office, said it remained unclear what happened in the time between the takeoff and the crash but the tower operator “saw a large plume of smoke.”
Michaela Matherne was flying from the village of Galena to Fairbanks to catch a flight to New Orleans when her small plane was diverted to verify the coordinates of the crash site.
“When we were in the air there was speculation that it was a cabin that caught fire, maybe a fish camp,” she told The Associated Press via Facebook Messenger.
“We actually didn’t know what we were looking at until after we landed a few minutes later,” she said. “We were shocked and saddened to hear that.”
The C-54 is a military version of the Douglas DC-4, which was a World War II-era airplane. The website www.airlines.net said standard passenger seating for a DC-4 was 44 during its heyday, but most have been converted to freighters.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the plane as a Douglas C-54. Troopers identified it as a DC-4.
The NTSB was sending investigators to the site, Johnson said.
Further information such as the flight's purpose and destination was not immediately available.
A fire burns after a Douglas C-54 Skymaster plane crashed into the Tanana River outside Fairbanks, Alaska, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (Alaska State Troopers via AP)
A twin-engine plane crashed outside Fairbanks Tuesday. (AP Graphic)
A fire burns after a Douglas C-54 Skymaster crashed into the Tanana River outside Fairbanks, Alaska, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (Michaela Matherne via AP)
A fire burns after a Douglas C-54 Skymaster crashed into the Tanana River outside Fairbanks, Alaska, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (Michaela Matherne via AP)
