Crabs on a plane delay LaGuardia flight

US Airways passengers from LaGuardia to Charlotte may have been a tiny bit crabby Thursday night over a 26-minute delay. But it turned out a large mess of small crabs -- found loose in the forward cargo hold -- was truly disrupted.

Flight 890, scheduled to depart at 6:59 p.m., was held up while workers swept the pint-size crustaceans out of the cargo hold, said Josh Freed, a US Airways spokesman. The crab species was not known, he said, but the critters were "widespread," and there was "a lot of them."

While the flight had originated in Charlotte and was headed back there, no information was available as to whose crabs they were and how they got out of their container, he said.

He also said he was not aware of what message had been delivered to passengers regarding the delay. For him, though, the incident is "file this under 'never a dull moment.' "

When the news got out -- and with a nod to the 2006 action film "Snakes on a Plane" -- Twitter users referred to the great aviation shellfish escape with the hashtag #CrabsOnAPlane.