Passengers stranded as rat boards AI flight in Calicut

A week after a rat forced the grounding of an Air India flight, 412 passengers aboard a
Riyadh-bound plane of the national carrier were stranded today at Calicut airport as a rodent was spotted in the aircraft.

The engineers are inspecting the plane and a relief aircraft is being dispatched from Mumbai to ferry the stranded passengers to their destination, an Air India spokesperson said.
    
The flight was scheduled to take off from Calicut airport at 2 pm. "A cabin crew spotted a rat in the aircraft, following which all the passengers were off-loaded. The engineers have been called in to inspect the aircraft," the spokesperson said.

Since there is no fumigation facility available at the Calicut Airport and a physical inspection would take time, a relief plane along with crew is being worked out from Mumbai, the spokesperson said, adding all the passengers have been lodged in hotels. Engineers and technical staff of the airlines apprehended that the rat could damage the wiring.
    
On September 26, nearly 147 passengers were asked to disembark from a Toronto-bound Air India plane after a rat forced the grounding of the flight at the Rajasansi international airport in Amritsar.