The furry visitor, that jumped out of a box of beverages at around 9:30 in the morning, was eventually found dead at around 8:30 in the evening, in a mouse trap placed in Galley II. [break]
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.
NAC, whose only other Boeing is in Israel for maintenance, had to fly its 133 Bangkok-bound passengers on Thai Airways and pay for five-star accommodation for 63 passengers in Bangkok thanks to the roaming rodent.
The 190-seater´s flight to Kuala Lumpur and the return flight were both full and NAC would have been forced to pay for five-star accommodation for the passengers in Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur had the mouse not been found in time.
NAC management was putting pressure for the flight to Kuala Lumpur to go ahead even without capture of the mouse in view of the high cost of accommodating 380 passengers, and there was even a possibility of the pilots defying management´s orders.
But the situation was saved just in time and any such unpleasant scenario averted. “If the engineering department has given clearance for the flight, I will definitely fly it to Kuala Lumpur,” said Chief Captain Rabindra Purush Dhakal, when told that the department had given clearance.
CARTOON BY: DEWEN
An officer at NAC´s Quality Assurance and Safety Department claimed that no guidelines from the Civil Aviation Authority or any other rules and regulations mention anything about the eventuality of a mouse being found in the plane, and opined that the engineering department had to clear the entry made by pilots in the flight´s Tech Log Book (TLP). “We are not required to give clearance on this matter. The engineers have to either provide evidence of the mouse being found or assure the pilots that the mouse is no longer on board,” the officer explained.
Stewardess Manju Dhakal had seen the mouse jump out of a box of coffee, tea and beverages in Galley II, just before passengers were about to board. It run toward Galley III at the back of the plane, and the stewarness reported it to her supervisor Saroja KC who then informed the pilots.
International history of rodent trouble
An Airbus 330 of SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System), flag carrier of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, was grounded on August 16 when a mouse was spotted roaming round the cabin before passengers boarded. SAS couldn´t trace the mouse despite placing of traps and searches for well over 24 hours. The plane bound from Stockholm to Chicago eventually took off, assuming that the mouse was no longer on board.
A Qantas flight was grounded for a day in June after five baby rats were found in a medical cabinet on board and an Alaska Airlines flight was grounded in February when a rat was spotted in the cabin just as it was preparing to fly, according to The Economist, which recently published an article about freakish flight delays. A Thomas Cook flight from Paphos, Cyprus to London in February 2011 was delayed 24 hours after the pilot spotted a rat on board.
Similarly, an Air Canada flight for London in February, 2010 was grounded after a passenger found a rat in an overheard locker.
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