On a Friday the 13th, bad luck led to an act of kindness.
United Flight 2480 (UA2480) departed San Francisco at 1:01 PM on September 13 and was scheduled to land in Houston, Texas, just after 7:00 PM.
Then things took a turn in the air.
“I noticed there were no flight attendants, they all went in the back for whatever reason,” Tanya Stamos, a passenger on the flight, told TODAY.com. “That was before the captain said anything. I thought, ‘Huh, that’s a little strange.’”
Stamos says the captain eventually went on speaker phone and asked for help from any medical professionals who might be on board. Some time after those volunteers disappeared from the back of the plane, the captain got on the intercom again to say that an emergency landing would take place in New Mexico.
“The plane just diverted,” she says. “Really, you could tell we were going to make a quick landing.”
According to FlightAware statistics, UA2480 was diverted to Albuquerque International Sunport and landed at 4:15 p.m.
Stamos says an ambulance was there to catch the plane when it landed, and one passenger was rushed away before the rest of the passengers got off the plane.
The emergency landing resulted in a delay, causing some UA2480 crew members to exceed the maximum hours of service allowed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Legally, Stamos and the rest of the passengers had to wait for a new group of flight attendants before they could reach their final destination.
“There was a flight arriving from Chicago much later in the evening,” Stamos says.
According to emails and text messages United sent to passengers and viewed by TODAY.com, the new flight crew was expected to arrive in time for a 10:30 p.m. departure. According to the texts reviewed, each passenger was initially given a meal voucher at 7:15 p.m., hours after they started waiting.
Then came more bad luck.
“The captain says, ‘Just to let you know this airport will be ready to close in about 15 minutes,’” Stamos said. According to the ABQ website, airport restaurants close at 9 p.m
In a heroic effort to feed the airmen, their pilot had a heartwarming idea for dinner: a pizza party.
Stamos later posted about the experience on TikTok.
“Our pilot is absolutely amazing,” she wrote. “He felt so bad about the situation that he ordered 30 pizzas from a local pizzeria and had them delivered to our gate and (then) made sure all 150 passengers ate before making himself a plate.”
TODAY.com could not independently verify the number of pizzas ordered. United Airlines representatives confirmed that there were 153 passengers on the flight.
United Airlines representatives declined TODAY.com’s request to contact the pilot, but applauded him for his kind action.
“We like our pilots to go above and beyond for our customers when the unexpected happens,” a United representative told TODAY.com via email. “This flight was diverted due to a passenger medical issue, and we did our best to get customers back on their way to Houston quickly.”
Stamos adds that the pilot organized the pizza line in the only way that would make sense for a group of people sitting at a departure gate: by assigning passenger seats.
“I just loved it so much,” Stamos said. “He stood there while everyone was getting pizza and when a box was empty, he took that box and replaced it with a full pizza.”
Eventually, the replacement flight crew arrived and the passengers made their way to Houston, landing in the early morning hours.
Stamos says the lengthy delay has given her a surprising sense of positivity.
“Everyone always thinks about something negative happening in this world – this world is doomed,” says Stamos, reflecting on the pilot’s act of kindness. “What I take away from it is that goodness always prevails, you know?”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
