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DETROIT, Michigan (Contributed by ?)
"May 2004 (Northwest Terminal) - I was travelling home from the Science Olympiad national tournament in PA with my team (21 people). We barely made our flight from Pittsburgh to Detroit because of construction delays and almost ended up sleeping there, but we made it, made our connection in detroit and boarded our plane. There was a long line-up of planes to get on the runway, so it took quite a while. After several delays on the runway, we finally made it and were cleared for take off. We started to accelerate, then suddenly stopped because we could no longer take off. We were almost off the ground! Then, we got back in line for the runway. The weather was so bad that after several minutes, the air traffic control towere had to be evacuated. We were stuck on the plane for several hours, eating pretzels and playing cards. They eventually had people back in the tower, but they forgot about our plane because they had already given us clearance for takeoff! We were in that airplane like ten times longer than the flight would have been! We made it back to the airport, and got in the long line to get new tickets. Our new tickets were not for about a day and a half and they weren't even to the same airport we were supposed to go to. Because they do not give hotel vouchers for weather, we had no choice but to stay in the airport. With a group as large as ours, even if we could have afforded a hotel, there were not enough open rooms. By the time we actually got back to the airport, all of the shops were closing, but we met a guy who gave us the number of a pizza place that would deliver. We ordered 4 extra large pizzas, then went outside and got soaked in the rain to get them. We had to put them through the x-ray machine and some of the security guards even asked if they could by a slice! We stayed up for a few more hours playing frisbee and cards, and we even met another group from our school who also got stranded, but they were much smaller and had money for a hotel, so they left. The airport gave us drinks from the airplanes, little bags of pretzel" Added 19 Sep 2004