Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
It's a zoo up there! You never know what hairy critter you might meet on your next flight.
Jun 30, 2000 | On June 21, a Mesaba Airlines jet en route to Allentown, Pa., via Detroit was diverted to Cleveland. The change of course wasn't due to bad weather, mechanical trouble, a bomb scare or another case of "air rage." The captain diverted the aircraft for a far more peculiar reason: A passenger had been stung by a scorpion.
According to news reports, a 40-year-old man felt a sting on his hand approximately halfway through the flight. Mesaba spokeswoman Shirley Doering says the man looked down and saw the offending creature, which was swiftly killed by another passenger. "Our guess is it probably got into a passenger's carry-on luggage from the Southwest, Mexico or the Caribbean," Doering said.
Passengers were put on other flights while the plane returned to Detroit for fumigation. The victim received immediate medical attention upon landing (of the 1,400 species of scorpion that exist worldwide, only one deadly breed is found in the United States), and was released the same day with a swollen hand and a helluva story. He might be disappointed to discover just how familiar his tale is.
"To my knowledge, it's never happened at Mesaba," says Doering of the in-flight attack. "But it's not uncommon."
Doering is painfully correct.
During an October 1998 Ansett Airlines flight from Melbourne to Perth, Australia, 6-year-old Khyl Hardy reached under his seat for a lost lollipop and was bitten by a snake. Reports say his mother noticed something was wrong when the boy started trembling. Medical tests later confirmed that Khyl had in fact been bitten by a taipan snake. Found primarily in Australia and New Guinea, taipan snakes grow to about 11 feet. Bite victims have difficulty breathing and can suffer rapid paralysis; without an antidote, the likelihood of mortality is high. However, this young passenger was not seriously injured.
Ansett grounded the A-320 aircraft in Adelaide, where seven snake catchers boarded to search for the creature. When their efforts failed, sniffer dogs were summoned to do the job. The snake proved elusive for the four-legged posse as well. In the end, the airplane also had to be fumigated. "We're absolutely satisfied that there is no snake on that aircraft," said Ansett spokesman Peter Young. He believes a passenger must have brought it onboard.
Most airlines allow only domestic household pets -- dogs, cats and birds -- in the passenger cabin. These pets must remain in a kennel underneath the seat. Less common pets such as lizards, ferrets and snakes are deemed unacceptable in the cabin (even when transported in kennels); they must travel in the pressurized cargo compartment with larger animals.
Worried about a pet's chances for survival in the cargo hold, short on cash to pay shipping fees or merely too stubborn to follow the rules, passengers occasionally smuggle their pets aboard the aircraft. I once caught a woman with a lizard in her purse. A teenager carried aboard a ferret in a hatbox. Even more astounding, a colleague was forced to deplane a man who had a 5-foot python in his backpack.
United Airlines charges $100 round-trip to ship a medium-sized kennel from Los Angeles to New York. At many airlines last summer, however, several pets died from heat-related complications in cargo holds. As a result, United has imposed an embargo on all pet cargo shipments until Sept. 15. American, Delta and other major carriers have adopted similar pet moratoriums for the summer months.
This temporary cargo restriction is bound to spark a slight increase in onboard pet smuggling. If you're on a flight between now and the middle of September, and your seatmate's carry-on bag starts to wiggle, you'll know why.
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