Zee Media Bureau/Amartya Sinha
New Delhi: In yet another incident of rodent menace onboard flights, a rat briefly distracted the attention of a pilot of an Air India flight enrouted to London from New Delhi. The unprecedented incident reportedly took place when the pilot of the flight spotted a rat under the rudder pedal in the cockpit.
The incident took another interesting turn when a television news channel reportedly accessed the transcripts of messages exchanged between the pilot of the Air India Dreamliner aircraft and the airline's control room in New Delhi.
The logs of the recorded conversation between flight 115's pilot and the control room has also revealed some stunning facts. While the pilot complained to the airline's control room about the rodent menace in the cockpit, he was told to continue the flight towards London. The airline reportedly assured the pilot that the aircraft will be fumigated upon its arrival at the destination.
The aircraft was allowed to fly to London despite of the risk of the rat damaging the wires in the cockpit. Moreover the state run carrier doesn't have an engineering wing in London. As per standard operating procedures, the pilot was supposed to immediately return to the terminal for getting the airplane fumigated. But the flight continued its journey to the destination which badly jeopardised the safety and security of the passengers and crew members.
The flight 115 incident comes a few days after a large number of rats were reportedly spotted in another Air India flight which was flying to New Delhi from Kolkata on August 4.
