Story Archive

With Live Coverage by WKRP

Six live turkeys were tossed out of an airplane over Yellville, Ark., as part of the Turkey Trot festival. Amazingly, only one of the turkeys was killed in the fall. “We don’t endorse the practice of heaving unsuspecting turkeys out of aircraft for entertainment purposes,” says Lynn Lunsford, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, “but our regulations don’t specifically exclude live animals as ‘objects’.” The FAA is only concerned about safety of people and property on the ground, and it’s legal to toss “objects” from planes as long as ground safety is observed. Lunsford says the FAA has no jurisdiction over any animal cruelty issues. The festival began in 1946, and the airplane toss apparently started then too. (RC/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) ...“As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”