The Minnesota Vikings trip to Green Bay started and ended poorly for the team.
The team's plane slid off the taxiway at Appleton International Airport Friday night, leaving players and personnel stuck for hours.
"It's unusual and something like this has not happened in Appleton before," said Pat Tracey, Marketing Manager for the Appleton International Airport.
The plane landed around 5:15 p.m., but the last player was not taken off until 11:30 p.m.
Tracey said it took hours to get them off the plane because Delta, the airline the team flew, has a process to go through with this kind of incident, and it took them some time to cycle through their options.
In addition, the snowy conditions were one reason Delta ruled out use of the emergency slide. They instead called first responders with aerial platform trucks.
"To deplane your passengers at night, in the middle of a snowstorm, onto a concrete ramp, two-story drop is really not best practice," said Tracey.
Delta sent a mechanic crew to the airport and the plane made it to the gate Saturday morning, according to Tracey. It was cleared to travel back to Minneapolis.
At this point, they're still not sure why or how this happened.
"Our primary concern was the safety of the passengers and getting everyone off the airplane safely," said Tracey.
There were no injuries and the Vikings made it to their hotel by midnight. They flew back to Minneapolis on a different plane out of Green Bay.
