Air India flight turns back after rat spotted on board

[bendejo]

Do the flight attendants still spray disinfectant throughout the cabin during the approach to land in India? I am not joking.

Against my better judgement many years ago my company booked me on an Air India Hong Kong to Mumbai flight.

Most eventful / disturbing flight I've ever taken. Some passengers carried TV sets in boxes into the cabin and sat there with TV in box on their laps for the full flight, some boxes, bags bigger than the seat width and occupying some of the seat width of the next seat.

And worst of all, one family sat in the aisle and unpacked their food including a small primus stove for cooking. Steward had to get very angry to remove the stove. Many other passengers tried to insist the family with the stove weren't doing anything wrong. Cabin staff very arrogant.

A plane full of hajjis returning to Pakistan was sitting on the tarmac in Saudi waiting for take-off. There was a delay, so in the meantime someone decides to make tea, takes out a kerosene stove and lights it. A fire starts. Instead of letting someone undo the door, the passengers stampeded the exits -- the doors weren't opened and all died (or just about). This was in 1980.

[wooloomooloo]

This story requires ratification.

[Beats56]

Them rats have been hitching rides for centuries either a boat or now air planes.

Give them credit they know how to sarvive

My spelling is atrocious right now anyway Alberta Canada is and has been rat free for a long time.

[impulse]

The only thing worse than having a live rat is having a dead one that you can't find. That smell will never go away completely.

[jacko45k]

Just the one?

[siam2007]

Do the flight attendants still spray disinfectant throughout the cabin during the approach to land in India? I am not joking.

Malaysia Airlines cabin staff did that when approaching HEATHROW a few weeks ago

[impulse]

Do the flight attendants still spray disinfectant throughout the cabin during the approach to land in India? I am not joking.

Malaysia Airlines cabin staff did that when approaching HEATHROW a few weeks ago

I wonder if there may have been an ill passenger on the way to Heathrow that prompted extra precautions?

That was a common practice in China during any bird flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, etc. scare. I've sat on an arriving airplane in Beijing for 30 minutes while they disinfected the cabin and took temperatures from all passengers before any were allowed to deplane.