A live rodent caused a Scandinavian Airlines plane to make an emergency landing after contaminating a passenger's food. BBC reported.
On a recent flight from Oslo, Norway to Malaga, Spain, an unidentified woman opened her meal on the plane and a live mouse jumped out of her tray. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Copenhagen, Denmark, because the rodent posed a “security risk,” according to airline spokesman Oystein Schmidt. The passengers were then taken on a different plane to Malaga.
“Believe it or not, a lady sitting next to me in SAS opened the food and a mouse jumped out,” passenger Jarle Borrestad wrote on Facebook. “We've just turned back and landed at CPH [Copenhagen Airport] for flight changes.”
While finding a mouse on a plane is “extremely rare,” Schmidt says, there are actually very strict rules governing their presence on planes because they can chew through an aircraft's electrical wiring. They're particularly dangerous because much of what they eat goes unnoticed, which can lead to a short circuit or risk a fire.
“When mice take up residence in an aircraft, it not only becomes their home… it becomes their bathroom,” the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association noted. “It's more than just gross. Mouse urine is corrosive to metal, and their droppings can act as an anti-desiccant, retaining moisture and causing water corrosion,” it explained. “If you see a mouse in a hangar, the right response is to take action.”
Schmidt assured potential passengers that the airline had the situation under control. “We have procedures in place for these types of situations,” he said, “including a review with our suppliers to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”