The odds of a hamster attack are low but never zero. Out of all the reasons to have your flight delayed or canceled, escaped hamsters are usually pretty low on the list. But that's exactly what happened in Portugal. A plane got grounded after 130 hamsters escaped from their cages. It's such a bizarre situation that I'm officially calling Operation: Hamster Wheel from this moment forward.
At first, airport workers didn't even realize the little rodents had escaped. But they soon found several roaming the cargo area of the plane. Handlers then found the damaged cages and realized they had a hamster apocalypse on their hands. The cages had got damage during the flight to Azores. Now, the plane is grounded as they try to find all of the rodents.
The issue is that hamsters will chew through pretty much anything including power cables. A big no-no for things you want to keep in the air. 130 hamsters went missing, but they managed to round up most of them. However, 16 remain on the lam, somewhere on the plane. You're probably wondering what were they doing on the plane to begin with?
Missing Hamsters
Well, they were being delivered to a pet shop. It's really whoever approved the cage is to blame. A previous flight refused to carry the hamsters because "didn't meet accepted standards." Well, I guess they were right, huh? The plane has been unable to leave the airport until all of the rodents get accounted for. It's quite a messy situation.
Officials want to try try to find the animals before they wreck the plane's sensitive electronic equipment. It turns out this isn't even the first time something like this has happened. In 2016, the rodents forced a Boeing jet to stay grounded after hundreds got loose. Meanwhile in 2006, a passenger with a hamster caused trouble on a flight.
So I think at this point, more precautions should be put into place. I would hate to find out that my flight got canceled because someone lost their pet. I would also hate to be the one on the hunt for the critters.
