The family was headed to the funeral of Jay W. Short, a 56-year-old husband and father of three who died on Dec. 16 after losing a battle to lung cancer about five months after being diagnosed. A 90-minute delay in the family’s flight from Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport left them with about 7 minutes to make a connecting flight in Minneapolis, which was the last plane flying to Memphis that day. "After a long ordeal to get everything taken care of, he (Jay) was finally on a flight Saturday morning and the funeral was scheduled Sunday," Short's wife, Marcia, said. The delay caused problems for the family when they reached their connecting flight in St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota. We are pleading for them to not take off," Marcia Short, Jay’s wife, wrote in a post that was displayed on her daughter’s Facebook page. By the time the family dashed to the gate in the Minneapolis Airport, the door to the jet way was closed and the Tennessee-bound plane was taxiing toward the runway. "If we did not get on that flight, we would miss the funeral. We had to get to Memphis." "My son and I are waving our arms at the pilots and the ground crew as my two daughters are crying their eyes out. That’s when he made an unprecedented move -- turning the plane back to ensure the family made it on board. "Pilots Adams and Anderson of flight DL 3955 on December 19, 2015 from MPLS-St Paul to Memphis on Delta Airlines have blessed my family and gave us a gift that no one else could. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts and may you both be blessed ten fold," Marcia said.
– In the week before Christmas, one Delta Air Lines pilot gave a grieving Arizona family a "gift that no one else could," Tucson News Now reports. Father of three Jay Short died after a battle with lung cancer Dec. 16. Three days later, his family was attempting to fly to Tennessee for the funeral scheduled for the next morning. But a 90-minute delay at the Phoenix airport left them only seven minutes to make their connecting flight in Minnesota, according to ABC News. "This was our last chance to say goodbye to my dad, and if we missed the flight we would [have] missed the funeral," Jay's daughter says. But when they arrived at the gate, the last plane of the day to Memphis was pulling away from the gate. "My son [was] waving his arms and pleading with the pilot through the floor to ceiling windows," News Now quotes Marcia. "I was crying and attempting to console my girls when the phone rang. The pilot was pulling back to the gate to let us board the plane." According to ABC, Capt. Adam Cohen saw the "desperation on their faces" through the gate's windows and decided to turn the plane around. Airline experts point out Cohen could have easily gotten in trouble for the unusual decision, though in this case, Delta has only praised the move. "This is something we’ll take with us, knowing we made a difference," Cohen tells ABC. (Another pilot ordered pizza for his stuck passengers.)