FAA Says It Has No Authority to Stop People From Throwing Live Turkeys Out of Airplanes

by Gary Leff

There’s an annual festival in Arkansas where live turkeys are dropped from an airplane. Attendees chase the surviving turkeys hoping to catch them.

The FAA said it would investigate but has determined they have no regulations that prevent turkeys from falling from the sky (last year two died on impact).

FAA regulations do not specifically prohibit dropping live animals from aircraft, possibly because the authors of the regulation never anticipated that an explicit prohibition would be necessary

According to the FAA, “Our regulations only cover ‘objects,’ and specify that they can be dropped from aircraft as long as they don’t pose a danger to people or property on the ground” but in this case the pilot drops the turkeys away from crowds of people.

Here’s video of turkeys being thrown out of a plane at the festival:

Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee, who recently joined the Mile high Club on a one hour American Airlines flight, is trying to put an end to the Yellville, Arkansas turkey drop. But despite the best efforts of the former husband to both Heather Locklear and Pamela Anderson, the county prosecutor will not pursue animal cruelty charges.

(HT: Khalil D.)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  7. How is it not animal cruelty to throw an animal that can’t fly out of a frickin plane? The prosecutor should be thrown out of office.

  10. I haven’t laughed so much in so long; thanks for quoting from the show. It made me feel young again. . . Hah . . pee . . . Thanks . . giv . . . ing

  12. So I’m not the only one remembering “As God is my witness…” and I’m still laughing as I type .
    Yes , Happy Thanksgiving to all !

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