Turtle's walk delays planes at Tokyo airport
Try easier levels of this lesson: Turtle - Level 0, Turtle - Level 1 or Turtle - Level 2.
Download the 27-page lesson | More mini-lessons
The reading
There are many reasons for delays at airports. Sometimes it's bad weather, sometimes it's a technical problem, and other times it's a passenger who is late to the boarding gate. Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan has added a new cause of flight delays – a turtle going for a walk. The runway at Narita had to close for 12 minutes because a 2.1-kilogram turtle was spotted on the tarmac. The pilot of an airplane waiting to take off told air traffic controllers about the small reptile at around 11:35am. There was an immediate search for it. This caused the delay of five flights. Airport staff managed to locate the creature. They safely removed it with a net. They reported that it was unharmed.
A Narita Airport spokesperson said she believed the turtle lived in a nearby pond. It managed to get under a fence alongside the airport and crawl onto the runway. The turtle might have decided to sunbathe because of the warm weather. It was a lot warmer than usual at the airport for the time of the year. Shortly after the turtle was caught, an A380 airplane took off from the runway. By coincidence, the A380 was painted in a turtle design. The plane was from the Japanese airline ANA. It was going to the island of Okinawa in the south of Japan. An ANA spokesperson said: "Turtles are seen as bringing good luck. We hope this turtle, who came to see the flight off, signals a bright future."
Sources:
-
https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0007810712
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/28/turtle-slow-moving-reptile-delays-five-planes-at-japan-airport
https://simpleflying.com/tokyo-tortoise-trouble/
Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)
