Flights divert all the time, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s due to mechanical issues, sometimes it’s due to medical issues, and sometimes it’s because… a live mouse pops out of the inflight meal?!
SAS flight to Malaga diverts to Copenhagen over mouse
This incident happened on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, and involves Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) flight SK4683, scheduled to fly from Oslo (OSL) to Malaga (AGP). The 1,766-mile flight was operated a seven-year-old Airbus A320neo with the registration code SE-DOX. It took off from Norway roughly on schedule, at 2:05PM local time, and was supposed to land in Spain at 6:05PM local time.
After takeoff, while food and drinks were being served, one passenger discovered a live mouse in her meal (or snack… after all, we’re talking about an SAS flight within Europe here). Specifically, she opened the box with the food, and a mouse scurried out, and escaped into the cabin.
As a result, the crew made the decision to have the flight divert as soon as possible. The plane ended up heading for Copenhagen (CPH), where it landed 1hr40min after it departed. As you can see, the plane entered some extended holding patterns prior to landing.
The airline describes the decision to divert as being in line with company procedures, as the mouse posed a safety risk, due to the risk of electrical wiring being chewed. As an airline spokesperson explains, “this is something that happens extremely rarely,” and the airline has “established procedures for such situations, which also include a review with suppliers to ensure this does not happen again.”
A passenger describes the situation onboard as calm, and states that passengers weren’t stressed at all.
To be honest, I’m surprised these kinds of situations don’t happen more often:
- For one, airplanes spend quite a bit of time on the ground with doors and panels open, which is how we sometimes see animals (including snakes) make their way onto planes
- Then you have all the things that are loaded onto aircraft, including food, bags, and more, which could contain creatures as well; honestly, there’s a shocking number of rodents at many airports, so I’m also not surprised that they sometimes make their way onto planes
We’ve sometimes seen people find dead animals in their meal (and I’m not talking about non-vegetarian food), so I’m not sure whether this is better or worse…
The airline handled this situation efficiently
We have to give Scandinavian Airlines credit for how well it handled this situation. The jet touched down in Copenhagen at 3:45PM, and at 5:21PM, the passengers took off for Malaga on a different Airbus A320neo, with the registration code SE-ROR.
While the flight was initially supposed to arrive in Malaga at 6:05PM, passengers ended up landing at 8:22PM. A delay of just over two hours for both a diversion and finding a new aircraft is quite impressive!
In fairness, it helps that the airline diverted to another hub, and also that the airline has quite a large fleet of A320neos, all of which have an identical configuration. Either way, the logistics here aren’t that easy, in terms of transferring bags, passengers, etc. I don’t think this could’ve been handled much better.
Bottom line
A Scandinavian Airlines Airbus A320neo scheduled to operate from Oslo to Malaga had to divert to Copenhagen, after a live mouse was found in the inflight meal, and escaped into the cabin.
I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often, and the airline really handled this situation quite efficiently, given there was a delay of just over two hours at the final destination, despite a diversion.
What do you make of this SAS mouse diversion?
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