Plane in Washington, DC Sinks Into Tarmac

Thanks to 100 degree temperatures, the tarmac in Washington, DC became soft enough to entrap an airplane. Photo courtesy: Philip Dugaw

Global warming will have many expected; and, sometimes hilarious results. This week in Washington, DC it was so hot that an airplane sank 4" into the tarmac; and, became trapped.

We now know that the first half of this year was the hottest in U.S. history. We also know that respected climate scientists have explicitly described the extreme weather this year thusly: It's "what climate change looks like."

And yeah, it looks like devastating wildfires and heat waves and sweating, thirsty people without power all along the eastern seaboard. But it also looks like that, above. That's a plane sinking nearly half a foot into the boiling runway.

The Washington Post explains:

the temperature reached 100 degrees in Washington on Friday and that apparently softened the airport paving enough to immobilize the airplane. The small vehicle that usually tows planes away from the gate tugged and pulled, but the plane was stuck.

A jet airliner getting stuck in the airport tarmac appeared to be one of the more unusual incidents that occurred in the Washington area amid a blistering string of daily temperatures above 95 degrees.

It was so hot that tarmac had gotten soft enough for a plane's wheels to actually sink down into. So passenger Phillip Dugaw snapped an image and posted it onto Reddit, and it promptly went viral. His account: "They spent over an hour trying to get it out with the tug-truck, before they deplaned us. Still didn't work. Then they off-loaded luggage to try to make it even lighter and blasted the engines to try to get it out. After two hours, they gave up and cancelled the flight."

Yeah, climate change also looks like crazy infrastructure fails and pain-in-the-ass travel snafus. And that's just the beginning.