Pilot turns plane back so family won’t miss funeral

The pilot of a Delta Airlines flight turned the plane
around to pick up a Phoenix mom and her
children on the way to their dad’s funeral.
Marcia Short’s husband of 32 years wished to be
buried by his family in Tennessee. The 56-year-
old died of lung cancer and his body was flown to
Memphis Dec. 19, one day before the Sunday
funeral.
So when the Shorts’ Dec. 19 flight out of Phoenix
was delayed by more than an hour and the gate
to their connecting flight in Minneapolis closed
without them, they fell in despair.
“The heartache and thought of missing that
flight hurt tremendously,” Marcia’s daughter
Nicole told the Daily News via Facebook.
Through tears, the Shorts began waving their
arms and screaming in a desperate attempt to
catch the pilot’s attention.
They pleaded with an attendant who said nothing
could be done to stop the plane from taking off.
Marcia was consoling her daughters when the
Delta employee got a call, the pilot had seen
them and was returning to the gate to let the
family board.
“When the phone rang at the desk and she
said it was the pilot who insisted on
bringing that plane back to the gate to let
us on more tears came,” Nicole Short wrote
to The News. “But these ones were happy
tears.”
A Delta spokesperson identified the pilot as
Captain Adam Cohen of Endeavor Air, a Delta
Airlines subsidiary.
“This Pilot deserves more praise than my
family can give him,” Nicole Short wrote. “I
hope others reading this will think twice
and spread more kindness around.”