Escaped from boxes

132 hamsters paralyzed an Airbus in Portugal

An unusual animal incident took place in the Azores last week: 132 hamsters escaped from their transport boxes on an Airbus. It took four days to recapture all the rodents.

The TAP Air Portugal Airbus took off from Lisbon last Tuesday evening. On board were 185 passengers, their luggage and a delivery for a pet shop in the Azores. A delivery of 132 hamsters, ferrets and some birds that almost proved fatal.

The hamsters had escaped from their boxes during the flight and then ran around the cargo hold, startled. The rodents were only discovered after landing at Ponta Delgada airport in the Azores. The ground crew opened the cargo doors of the airbus at around 11.45 p.m. to unload the luggage.

Here you can see a picture of the plane.

Wires and cable ducts in danger
The passengers were lucky that there was no incident on the flight. After all, the small rodents can nibble on and even destroy electrical cables and cable ducts, putting safety at risk. As the Portuguese daily Correio da Manhã reported, it took four days to recapture the animals. The last 16 escapees were finally caught on Saturday.

Following a technical inspection, the Airbus was declared airworthy and returned to Lisbon on Saturday without any passengers. However, it will be inspected again there.

Regulations disregarded?
According to Portuguese media reports, the pets were rejected on another flight just one day before the incident. The argument was that the hamsters' transport boxes did not comply with the regulations. Now the aim is to find out why the rodents were able to get on board anyway. Their new home is a pet shop on the Atlantic island of São Miguel.