Mouse grounds NAC Boeing again, in HK
Nepal Airlines Corporation´s Boeing 757 9N-ACB that left Kathmandu for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia late Monday night after being grounded for over 11 hours because of a mouse, has now been grounded at Hong Kong International Airport as another mouse was spotted, this time in the cockpit.
NAC´s Hong Kong-Kathmandu flight has been cancelled while efforts to trap the mouse are ongoing.
“The mouse that has grounded the plane in Hong Kong is not the same one seen while the aircraft was at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) Monday,” NAC Spokesperson Raju Bahadur KC stated. “Our engineers have photographs of the mouse that was found dead stuck to sticky glue used as a trap,” KC added.
The engineering department at TIA had given clearance to the plane after the mouse that had jumped out of a box of beverages at around 9:30 Monday morning just before passengers bound for Bangkok were about to embark was eventually found dead at around 8:30 in the evening.
NAC, whose only other Boeing is in Israel for maintenance, had to fly its 133 Bangkok-bound passengers on Thai Airways and pay for five-star accommodation for 63 passengers in Bangkok, all thanks to the roaming rodent.
JJ Pinsloo, shift controller of Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company Limited (HAECO), which refuels and does minor maintenance for NAC in Hong Kong, confirmed that a small mouse was spotted in the cockpit by pilots at around 6:45 pm local time (4:30 pm NST). The plane that had left Kathmandu for Hong Kong at 12:00 NST had just landed at Hong Kong International Airport when Captain YK Bhattarai and Captain SS Rana saw the tiny rodent.