{"id":964923,"date":"2026-11-15T04:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T04:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/964923\/"},"modified":"2026-11-15T04:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T04:04:22","slug":"us-flights-cancelled-2026-peter-spida-everitt-afl-player-stuck-in-chaos-sees-son-boston-everitt-play-for-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/964923\/","title":{"rendered":"US flights cancelled 2026: Peter Spida Everitt, AFL player stuck in chaos, sees son Boston Everitt play for Iowa"},"content":{"rendered":"

As every flight in the United States was grounded for the longest period since September 11<\/a>, it caused chaos for sports teams and schedules<\/a> around the world \u2013 and one high-profile Aussie found himself in the mix. <\/p>\n

St Kilda<\/a> Hall of Famer and former AFL<\/a> player Peter Everitt headed to Iowa to watch his son \u2013 Boston Everitt \u2013 play for the Iowa Hawkeyes. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Peter Everitt (center) hitched a ride from Denver to Des Moines, Iowa to watch his son play.\u00a0The Athletic<\/p>\n

But after his flight to Denver was delayed and then cancelled due to the nationwide grounding, the 6-foot-8 AFL icon found himself crammed in the back of a car for the 14-hour car journey to make it in time to see his son play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is typical of him for something like that … trouble finds him,\u201d Peter\u2019s wife, Sheree, said on Sunday morning. <\/p>\n

Everitt \u2013 also known as \u201cSpida\u201d \u2013 played for the St Kilda, Hawthorn and Sydney, having amassed 291 games over his career from 1993 to 2008. <\/p>\n

After his shift on Friday as a Triple M presenter, Peter flew from Brisbane to San Francisco and then Denver without incident. <\/p>\n

But by Saturday AEDT, he joined thousands of others stranded on the tarmac.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pilot goes, \u2018We\u2019ve all got to get off the plane\u2019,\u201d Everitt said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ask questions because I know as much as you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

As his flight was cancelled, Everitt started to look at possible arrangements in case no flights made it out of Denver, while his wife contacted people to help with travel contingencies.<\/p>\n

Sheree was already in Iowa City when Peter planned a quick weekend trip, which was supposed to last 36 hours before heading back home.<\/p>\n

His wife sent a note on social media asking if anyone was interested in \u201ca nice night drive to Iowa City, look me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within minutes, a person she had met at a previous Iowa tailgate reached out, saying some friends of friends knew two women who rented a car and were planning to drive to Iowa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just ring (Peter)…\u2018there\u2019s a lady in the car park\u2019,\u201d Sheree said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018Who?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018I don\u2019t know\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was epic,\u201d Peter said to The Athletic, who updated his moves on social media. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was planes, trains, automobiles, a bus and two girls from Burlington in a tiny Hertz rental car.\u201d<\/p>\n

He ended up in the car headed to Burlington with two strangers, sisters Danielle Chickenn and Lacy Hawkins, and after 40 hours, made it to Iowa in time to watch his son play Purdue. <\/p>\n

More than a million passengers across the United States were impacted by the decision by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) including Iowa\u2019s opponent, Purdue, who made the nearly 500 kilometre trek via bus to play on Sunday (AEDT). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As every flight in the United States was grounded for the longest period since September 11, it caused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-964923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}