An Air India aircraft was halted for 24 hours at Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Airport in Varanasi, the reason being – a mouse. Actually, there were chaos due to the rat appearing on the plane on Saturday night. Due to this, passengers were unloaded from the plane. However, the rat could not be found even after searching for a long time. Finally on Monday morning, Air India Airbus 319 flew to Dehradun. During this time, the passengers were taken off the plane and shifted to the hotel for 24 hours and the airline staff kept looking for a rat.
As per aviation rules, it cannot fly under any circumstances when the rat is in the aircraft as there may be danger if the rat damages any wiring (wire) of the aircraft. It can also prove fatal for passengers and crew on board. The airline authorities intercepted the flight for the entire day on Saturday night and Sunday. During this time, the maintenance workers kept checking the cables of the aircraft and also looking for the mice.
The airline has no answer
To fly the plane again, it is necessary to have Rodent Free (rat-free) certification. Airline sources failed to say whether the rat had boarded the aircraft from Varanasi airport or was already inside the aircraft. Please tell that Air India took flight from Kolkata Airport and reached Varanasi Airport after 85 minutes journey.
Aircraft flew from Kolkata on 80 minutes delay
Varanasi airport director Akashdeep Mathur said, "The necessary investigation was done to declare the flight rodent free and the aircraft flew to Dehradun on Monday morning." The plane was to fly from Kolkata at 3.55 pm but it was left for Varanasi at 5.15 pm with a delay of 80 minutes.
The aircraft reached Varanasi at 6.40 pm from where it was to fly to Dehradun after one hour. Meanwhile, some passengers saw the rat running inside the plane and there were chaos. The flight was then halted by unloading passengers from the aircraft.
Frustration on social media
Passengers appeared quite angry due to the 24-hour delay in the flight and drew anger on social media. One passenger tweeted, 'Flight number AI 691 was lying at Kolkata Airport on January 25 for an hour and a half. Then in Varanasi, after seeing the mouse inside the plane, we were taken down there and lodged in the hotel. Even after 24 hours, we do not know when we will be able to fly.
