Stowaway rodent causes flight in China to be delayed for 16 hours
Discovery was made during routine stopover in flight; culprit evaded capture until the following morning
Passengers’ ratty behaviour is known to occasionally disrupt domestic flights in China but travellers had their journey disrupted for more than 16 hours on the weekend by a real rodent, mainland media reports.
Passengers flying from Changchun, in Jilin province, to the southern city of Shenzhen were told the flight was barred from proceeding further following a scheduled stop in Yantai, Shandong province, on Friday night when the unwelcome stowaway was discovered on board the plane, the Changchun-based newspaper Xinwenhua reported on Sunday.
As a result, all passengers were ordered to disembark with all their luggage to make space for crew members to carry out the rat hunt.
The flight, which was scheduled to arrive in Shenzhen a few hours after its departure, was delayed in Yantai overnight and grounded until the next afternoon when the rat was captured, according to the newspaper report.
“At first, the crew didn’t tell us why we’d been taken off the plane, but later they told us there was a rat on the flight that had chewed wires in the aircraft,” a passenger named Yu told Xinwenhua.
She added that she felt scared by the announcement, which raised concerns about the airline’s management.