When mice take the Mickey out of airline…

Mouse in commercial aircraft
Mouse - Photo © George Shuklin, Wikimedia.org

It first happened on Monday September 5, 2011. A Nepal Airlines flight was cancelled at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu.

Do you guess why? The flight attendants spotted a stowaway mouse onboard their B-757 bound to Bangkok! The small rodent fled from the galley’s pantry, and rushed from a box of drinks to the back of the cabin although the 113 passengers did not notice the tiny stowaway.

The mouse was finally caught thanks to a glue trap. The jetliner was grounded for more than eleven hours.

 

Then, the same Boeing 757 – this time bound to Kathmandu – was grounded at Hong Kong International Airport on Tuesday September 6, in the evening.

The reason: the pilots spotted a mouse in the cockpit just before the airplane departure. The aircraft has not been cleared to take off because this mouse was trapped but then escaped, and would still be on the loose. The 84 passengers were rerouted on a Dragonair aircraft.

 

As far as flight safety is concerned, an aircraft cannot take off with a mouse moving freely onboard as it can gnaw the wiring, and therefore represents a potentiel danger.

It can only be caught or trapped. However, NAC (Nepal Airlines Corporation) could not poison any mouse for a small animal can damage an airplane even if it is dead somewhere, and particularly if in contact with a vital part of the plane.

 

Special thanks to Mr Hermas, and LadyEleanorA who buzzed this piece of news.

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail

Boeing windshield heaters to be inspected

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail

F-15 rewire flight

www.af.mil courtesy

by Wayne Crenshaw
78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

1/19/2010 – ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. – A new rewire flight at Robins is playing a key role in keeping the aging F-15 Eagle flying for years to come.

The flight will perform a complete rewire on 122 F-15s during the next five years. The rewiring will be done on C and D models, and when complete, the flight will spend at least another five years working on E models.

Keith Gilstrap, the rewire flight chief, said the reason for the rewire is that the insulation on the existing wire is getting brittle and causing shorts. Although it has not caused any crashes, it has led to a significant amount of field repair time and false troubleshooting, as technicians try to figure out why aircraft systems fail intermittently, he said.

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail

How it’s made – Airplane

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail