Rodent reroute: Flight diverts after mouse crawls out of passenger meal

A picture shows an aircraft of the Scandinavian airline (SAS) parked on the tarmac at the airport of Manchester in England. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse

OSLO — A mouse that crawled out of a passenger’s meal has forced an SAS flight to make an unscheduled landing, the company said on Friday.

The incident occurred during Wednesday’s Oslo to Malaga flight, forcing the plane to land in Copenhagen.

Airlines usually strictly prohibit rodents on board because the animals can chew through electrical wiring, key to the operation of a plane.

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“Believe it or not. A lady next to me… opened her food and a mouse jumped out,” wrote one passenger, Jarle Borrestad, on his Facebook page, along with a photo showing him smiling next to two other women, also smiling.

A spokesman for SAS, Oystein Schmidt, told AFP that “in line with our procedures, there was a change of aircraft” and the passengers were flown to Malaga on another flight.

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“This is something that happens extremely rarely,” he said of the incident.

“We have established procedures for such situations, which also include a review with our suppliers to ensure this does not happen again,” he said.