The Pittsburgh Steelers avoided an almost dire situation following their, 23-18, Week 3 win against the Las Vegas Raiders when they made an emergency landing in their team plane.
The team had to re-route to Kansas City International Airport due to an oil pressure failure in one of the engines.
Those on the plane reacted accordingly.
“Some guys were panicking,” Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett told the Associated Press. “It was a crazy situation. I’m happy we landed.”
Pickett said he was trying to get some sleep when a flight attendant woke him up to give him the news.
“(She) was like ‘We have a Code Yellow alert’ and I was just kind of out of it,” Pickett added. “I was like, ’What does that mean? We’re one step away from Code Red.’”
When the team safely landed, there were fire trucks at the scene, but overall, everyone seemed to be fine. However, they did have to stay on the tarmac for five hours while waiting for another play to fly in, in order to fly them the rest of the way home.
So, a long night to say the least.
Steelers defensive end Cam Heyward even joked the emergency landing was due to the “roughing the passer” penalty levied against safety Minkah Fitzpatrick earlier during the game. He also tagged Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce on Twitter asking to bum a ride off of them.
I’m sure they were too busy, but perhaps they would have been happy to oblige.
Even the airport itself got in on it:
Sorry you had to make an unscheduled touchdown in Kansas City, @Steelers. That will be the only one this year (not on the @Chiefs schedule). Post season: who knows? Fly safely. pic.twitter.com/KF17e3neN2
— Kansas City International Airport (@Fly_KansasCity) September 25, 2023
Head coach Mike Tomlin didn’t want to make it a huge deal, either.
“My desire is that as we move away from it, we talk less about it, because I don’t want it to be an excuse in any way, or some galvanizing thing in any way,” Tomlin said. “No, there’s nothing mystical about performance. We work. We prepare. We step into stadiums, and we play.”
