A female passenger on an Air India flight from Nagpur to Mumbai was reportedly stung by a scorpion mid-flight and had to be rushed to hospital after the plane landed on April 23.
The beleaguered Indian flag carrier confirmed that an incident took place aboard flight AI630, which departed Nagpur at around 9:14 pm for the one-hour flight to Mumbai.
A spokesperson for the airline said cabin crew immediately offered medical assistance to the victim, who is now said to be recovering well.
“There was an extremely rare and unfortunate incident involving a scorpion stinging a passenger on board our flight AI 630 on April 23, 2023,” an Air India spokesperson told local media.
“On landing, the said passenger was attended by the doctor at the airport and subsequently was treated at the hospital and discharged. Our officials accompanied the passenger to the hospital and offered all support to the passenger till discharge,” the statement continued.
The airline said that the aircraft was fumigated after arrival and an engineering team located and removed the scorpion.
Air India has a history of wildlife sneaking aboard its planes and in 2021, a New York-bound plane had to turn back to Delhi after a live bat suddenly started flying around the Business Class cabin.
It remains unclear how the bat wasn’t spotted before takeoff, but it appears that the motion of the plane taking off caused the bat to come out of hiding.
A few months later, an Air India flight from Delhi to London Heathrow was delayed by more than three hours after an ant infestation was discovered in the Business Class cabin shortly before takeoff.
The loss-making airline was acquired by the Tata Group last January after being sold off by the Indian government. The Tata Group intends to pump billions of dollars into Air India in a bid to transform the airline into a world-class airline that is positioned to take advantage of massive growth in the local aviation market.
Air India continues to make headlines, however, for all the wrong reasons, including the response (or lack thereof) of staff when a passenger urinated on an elderly Business Class passenger in November 2022.
Last month, the airline faced further questions after one of its Captain’s allegedly breached security rules when he invited a female companion into the cockpit.
The woman was not bitten. She was “stung”. A scorpion stings using its tail, not its mouth.