A Nepal Airlines flight was delayed for nearly 12 hours by a mouse that managed to find its way on-board a Boeing 757 9N-ACB Monday. It was discovered in of a box of drinks at 9:30am local time, and was found dead in a mousetrap a little after 8:30pm.
The plane could not have taken off with a mouse on board as the rodent can cut vital cables. It couldn´t even be poisoned and had to be captured for certain so that it would not die at some vulnerable location in the plane.The tiny trespasser caused cancellation of the Boeing´s flight to Bangkok, Thailand in the morning and delayed the midnight flight for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "We have found the mouse, and the plane has been released. But the flight to Kuala Lumpur (scheduled for 11:30 p.m.) will be delayed as we are still searching to make sure there aren´t any more rodents in the plane," engineer Shankar Thapa told Republica.
Full article here, includes a history of related incidents on other airlines, including a renegade mouse that delayed an SAS flight from Stockholm to Chicago, and an incident this June in which five baby rats were found in a medical cabinet on board a Qantas flight, and adult rats on various other airlines. Gross.
(thanks, Miles O'Brien!)
Photo: "Mouse living in Logan Airport," contributed to the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by Animal Detectors. "To visit the mouse, look around at Gate 31C for this hole, and please leave a few crumbs."
