On yesterday’s flight to Toronto, I experienced a whole new kind of delay. They managed to overfill the fuel tanks, so fuel was dripping off one wing. The pilot had a problem with that, and called for a paper towel.

He got two fire trucks, a police SUV, and about eight maintenance guys to supervise the official paper towel guy, who also came equipped with the optional scoop of kitty litter to make sure that no jet fuel soaked into the ground water.

I would estimate the original spill in the neighborhood of a cup or two. When I think about all those engines idling for the 20 or so minutes it took to clean everything up, I’m pretty sure we used a lot more than that…not to mention the incident reports that would no doubt be written and the debriefing session that will be held at a later date.