Two years ago yesterday, flying home from IAD on a Friday evening. Itinerary has my flight departing around 5pm with a 40 minute connection at DTW to the last PDX flight of the night. It hasn't been a great trip. My customer had been a giant pain in the ..., including basically blowing me off for the last 2 hours while I kept reminding him that I really needed to get going. Had a heck of a time finding gas for my rental car (the station that my customer recommended was closed...), so by the time I returned the car and at the counter to check my bags (have to check my tool kit, so I usually check my suitcase too), I am at 45 minutes from departure. So naturally, it's gate B78. The check in lady helpfully says "You should hurry - boarding will start in 10 minutes".

So I hustle all the way to the gate, to find everyone just standing around. The boarding door is open, but the gate agent is just standing at the podium looking at the crowd. I ask one of the people standing near me what is happening, and he just shrugs.

After about 10 minutes, one of the pilots comes up the jetway, speaks in the GA's ear for a bit, and heads back down. The GA gets on the PA and announces that a passenger on the incoming flight had a "problem with their luggage", and they were trying to work it out.

To make a long story slightly less long, 40 minutes later a young lady came up the jetway carrying a guitar case. It seems that the Flight Attendant had placed it in a closet for her, and it "shifted during flight" - jamming the door so that they couldn't open it in order to remove the guitar. The pilot came up again and explained that the FAs had tried to get it out, he had tried, the passenger had tried, even the gate agent had come down and tried. When all failed, they had to call for maintenance.

He said "The good news is that maintenance was able to remove the guitar case from the closet. The bad news is that they had to break the closet door with a fire axe to get it out... and since we can't go flying around with a broken closet door flopping around, we have to wait for them to repair it before we can take off".

All in all, we took about a 90 minute delay - which I suppose really isn't that bad, considering. Of course, I missed my connection. Had to spend the night in Detroit. Pro tip - if Delta offers to put you up in the Days Inn, take a pass. You will thank me.