An Airbus A321neo airplane belonging to TAP Air Portugal was grounded for several days at Ponta Delgada Airport in the Azores after a horde of as many as 130 hamsters managed to escape from their cages in the cargo hold and went missing inside the plane.
The incident occurred after TAP flight TP1865 arrived on São Miguel, the largest island of the Azores, which is located in the North Atlantic Ocean, around 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) west of mainland Portugal.
The four-year-old airplane departed Lisbon at around 10:30 pm on November 13 with a shipment of hamsters, as well as ferrets and several birds, which were destined for a local pet shop, Portuguese language daily newspaper CM reports.
Upon arrival of the plane just two hours later, baggage handlers opened up the cargo hold and quickly spotted a hamster running loose. They quickly discovered that the cage used to transport the rodents was damaged and that the vast majority of the hamsters had escaped.
While ground workers were able to quickly trap most of the errant hamsters, some remained on the loose, and the plane had to be grounded until they could all be found.
Rodents are a particular safety concern for airlines as they can chew through sensitive wiring, which could result in serious problems.
By Saturday, the aircraft (registration: CS-TJR) remained grounded because 16 of the hamsters were still missing but by Sunday morning, the aircraft had been cleared to fly again and had already returned to Lisbon.
A scheduled early morning flight from Ponta Delgado to Lisbon had to be canceled on November 14 because the plane was grounded, and it will be interesting to see whether TAP Air Portugal tries to get out of paying European EC261 ‘denied boarding’ compensation to passengers on the grounds that the hamsters represented an extraordinary circumstance.
That would certainly prove to be a fascinating court case to watch unfold, and no doubt consumer advocates would argue that it is the responsibility of the airline to ensure that the boxes to transport the hamsters were secure and met international freight standards.
In September, an SAS Scandinavian Airlines flight from Oslo to Malaga was forced to make an emergency diversion after a mouse jumped out of a passenger’s food tray and started to scurry around the cabin in front of stunned passengers.
Passengers onboard the Airbus A320 reported that there wasn’t much panic, but it wasn’t long until the Captain came onto the public address system to tell them that they would have to divert due to the mouse posing a safety risk.
The plane ended up diverting to Copenhagen, where the aircraft was taken out of service, and a replacement jet was organized to take the passengers to Spain.
