Live crabs that got loose in the cargo hold of US Airways Flight 890 caused a roughly 30-minute delay Thursday night for passengers traveling from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, an airline spokesman confirmed Friday.

The plane, scheduled to leave at 7 p.m., was still on the ground when crew members discovered the crustaceans, according to Josh Freed, a spokesman for US Airways.

“They were small, not Alaskan King crabs,” he said, noting there were “a decent number of them.”

Airline personnel swept out the cargo hold and sent the plane on its way at 7:25 p.m., Freed said.

The plane had initially come from Charlotte. It was unclear Friday who shipped the crabs and whether they were rounded up again after having been swept out, according to Freed.