Adil Najam
Here is a news item published in today’s The News (July 7, 2009, by Khalid Iqbal):
RAWALPINDI: Passengers heaved a sigh of relief when their plane from Birmingham finally landed at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport here on Monday, as they had been pestered by a number of rats who traveled with them all the way from Birmingham to Islamabad.
Dozens of big rats were present in the Boeing-777 flight No PK-792 that started its journey from Birmingham and landed here at 6:30 am on Monday. The passengers faced panic and disturbance due to the presence of the rats throughout the journey.
According to schedule, this flight, which had to leave for London at 11:30 am on Monday, could not be cleared of the rodents. The PIA management sent more than 50 mousetraps for catching the rats through its flight PK-368 from Karachi. However, the operation to catch the rats failed and the passengers of flight PK-792 took off at 2:30 pm on Monday instead of 11:30 am. The change, however, was that the passengers left on flight No PK-368 and not the original PK-792.
PIA Deputy Director Muhammad Latif admitted that big rats were present in the flight from Birmingham. He told The News that the engineering staff of the airlines succeeded in trapping the rats after a hard struggle. The big rats might have entered the plane while it was parked at the London Airport cargo centre, he added.
As the plane took off from the London airport, he said, the rats created panic and disturbance among the passengers and the plane staff informed the PIA officials about it.The passengers, who landed at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, strongly protested against the incident.
APP: PIA Spokesman Sultan Hassan said on Monday that the Boeing 777 was grounded at the Islamabad Airport when the rats were found inside the plane. Talking to a TV channel, he said that after fumigation, the plane would be made operational.
All I can say is to repeat the famous Fifty-Fifty line: hunn kar lao gall!
P.S. See more on PIA at ATP here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
..I do have to add:
It is quite out of reach for my small grey cells in the Cerebrum, that the national flag carrier has faced this problem . Had this taken place within a Scandinavian or European air-carrier, then it had been taken care of by National Health Institutions!
Having read the above article related to Rats, it disturbs me to be reflecting about all those meals eaten in Boeing 747 at national as well as international flights , that I and others have been consuming. I am rather concerned by the fact that Rattus /Rats do function as VECTOR
hmm….
-well I used to read about Rattus Norvegicus in microbiology
(I think that it was spelt like this..)
but due to this article the name might be more correctly:
PIA Mater Rattus Samosa`icus sine chattnicum lahorensis birhhammenicum
As much as I find it amusing, is it possible for the rats to gnaw through wiring on the plane?
Just imagine the headlines: PIA plane crashes. Investigators determine that rats chewed up the cables.
I am not an aeronautical engineer but I am assuming that the wiring has to meet some standards. Just not sure if those standards took rats into account :)
Following happened to me on my Lahore-Bangkock leg of Thai Air Flight enroute to Los Angeles.
After the dinner on this midnight flight, I noticed a morsel of food laying in the middle of isle. Contemplating to pick it up and throw it away, I noticed someone was already there to take care of it. It was a cockroach. Not a Pakistani model. But a smallish oval and much more alert an intelligent looking, as it was trying to move the piece of food to a safer location.
Aghast, and shocked at seeing a cockroach on board a flight, I raised awareness of the cockroach to a couple of pakistani people around me, so as to have more voices in the protest, I intended to make to the next passing flight attendant.
“Where is the cockroach?” exclaimed a young man in Lahoree accent, waking up from his nap. Then took off his shoe, and slammed it over the unsuspecting cockroack, whose body, felt safer sticking to the sole of his shoe after the assault.
The young man, then put his shoe back on, closed his eyes, and was back to sleep.
its the Pakistani version of Snakes on The Plane ..