Brothers Board Flight To London. Then The Wheel Falls Off The Plane. Then It Gets Worse

Two brothers heading to London were stopped by a cascade of disasters: first a wheel came off their aircraft. That was just the beginning of what could be described as a comedy of errors.

Creator Kyle Thorn (@thekylethorn), whose comedy channel has 2.3 million followers, recently posted a video about the experience. He captioned it, “Trying to get to London with my brother storytime.”

Their story, filmed from a hotel bed, has drawn more than 1.1 million views.

A Wheel Falls Off. Then The ‘Wheels’ Fall Off

“We got on our plane to fly to London and the wheel fell off of the plane,” Thorn says. According to him, the pilot left the aircraft, started “poking the top,” then came back in with a green vest on for what Thorn calls “a literal science experiment monologue.”

Halfway the pilot got to the point: “You’re all gonna have to get off the plane.”

The estimated delay was two hours. “So then we just went to the bar for a little bit and got some vodka sodas because we didn’t know what to do,” Thorn says. While they sat there, “the biggest bolt of lightning hits the tarmac.”

Then the airline pushed the departure another two hours, citing weather.

Five Minutes Too Late In Chicago

The flight eventually left and “landed in Chicago five minutes too late” for their London connection. The airline’s replacement plan was a flight to North Carolina and an 11-hour wait in the airport.

“No we’re not babe,” Thorn says. “That’s so cute, so cute of you to think we’re gonna do that.”

The apology for the inconvenience was a food voucher, he says, which Kyle reads to camera.

“It’s only valid for 12 [expletive] dollars,” he says, laughing, and “not intended for the purchase of liquor.” Then he tried to spend it, he says. “I went to McDonald’s, I tried to get a double double number nine and they didn’t accept it.”

There was a long line to get a hotel through the airline, so the brothers say they booked their own room at a Hilton for $400.

What The Rules Say About Flight Delays

Federal rules put a cap on how long an airline can keep passengers aboard a delayed plane. Under the tarmac delay regulation, carriers must offer the chance to deplane if a ground delay exceeds three hours on domestic flights, or four on international ones, and they have to offer food and potable water no later than two hours in.

The voucher and the shuttle line are a different matter: meal vouchers and hotel rooms are commitments airlines make voluntarily, recorded on the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) customer service dashboard. For delays that are within their control, every carrier listed offers meal vouchers after three hours, and all but Frontier provide a hotel and ground transport for overnight strandings.

But compensation does depend on whether the delay is something in the airline’s control. A wheel problem is mechanical and qualifies; lightning is weather and does not. The brothers’ afternoon presented both.

Passengers who turn down a reroute have a federal right to a refund when a flight is cancelled or significantly changed, and an itinerary with more connections than the original counts as significantly changed under DOT rules. The North Carolina reroute the brothers describe would have qualified for a refund.

Brothers’ Travel Fail Amuses The Crowd

Comments on the post were decidedly lighthearted, perhaps owing to the brothers’ unbridled amusement over their predicament.

A surprising number of commenters were preoccupied by the brothers’ pronunciation of “wheel.” They thought they’d said “will.” Many asked whose will fell off the plane. “The ‘will’ fell off,” wrote amandamcentee_. “I was like, I’m pretty sure there are copies of your will,” added tcook777.

Others cast the pair as the red-headed Weasley twins from the Harry Potter novels: “I’m so sorry you couldn’t get home Fred and George,” wrote paigemwhite94.

The voucher drew some disbelief. “The 12 dollars voucher is diabolical,” said elicia.mae. “Why’s it so specific and also so little. I’d cry after all that hassle, not even the McDonald’s accepts it.”

The brothers never name the airline in the video, but commenters made some guesses. “I just know this was American,” wrote brynn_feyereisen12. “Let me guess, United?” suggested robininsocal.

The video ends without saying whether the brothers ever reached London. Their brother Tucker Thorn (@TuckerThorn), who’s tagged in Kyle’s account bio, promised more: “The way this is only 10% of the story”.

BoardingArea reached out to Kyle Thorn via email. We’ll be sure to update this if he responds.

@thekylethorn Trying to get to London with my brother storytime 😂 #fyp #london #brother #travel ♬ original sound – thekylethorn