Rats in the Plane!

A Chennai-Delhi Air India A319 flight AI143 with no passengers inside the plane was delayed by more than two hours after pilot Captain Manik Lal and aircraft engineer VT Kannan had a difference of opinion which ended up in a fight inside the cockpit on Saturday. The aircraft engineer was injured and was admitted to a private hospital while the pilot Captain Manik Lal has been grounded till investigations are completed. 
The plane had minor snags and that the pilot and the engineer had a difference of opinion about continuing the flight.  A pilot said that pilots have a right to reject a flight if they found it was unsafe to fly after a technical snag.
The plane which had arrived from Mumbai was scheduled to take off at 9.45am to Delhi enroute to Paris and a team of technicians were preparing the plane for departure. An Air India official said that pilot was changed and the plane departed by around 11.45am because it was flying on an international route. Air India ordered an inquiry into the incident, which delayed the flight with 122 passengers on board, said airline spokesman GP Rao. “Staff were cleaning the wind shield and attending to other technical aspects inside the cockpit when Manik Lal walked in. He was not pleased to see too many people inside the cockpit and started to send them out. The flight engineer reached the cockpit and informed the pilot that the plane was yet to be handed over to the crew for flying. But the pilot refused to pay heed to the explanation,” said an official.  This led to an argument which escalated into a fight in which the flight engineer was injured and was admitted to a private hospital, he added.  An Air India official said,” an investigation has been ordered and the pilot was derostered till a report is submitted about the incident.”

On a separate incident an Indian passenger on Air India’s Melbourne-Delhi flight on Wednesday  1^st April 2015,  had a few drink too many and he allegedly tore the clothes of two flight pursers and tried to beat up and bite some fellow passengers.
Finally, the pilot sent a message to the airline command centre in Delhi that he wanted to divert the plane to Singapore to offload the passenger. But since the long diversion would have meant a delay of several hours for other passengers on board, the airline instead took a bold decision.
The inspiration came from the Hollywood movie  ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ in which Leonardo DiCaprio went berserk on a plane and was tied down to his seat. It asked the crew on board to firmly tie down the unruly passenger to his seat using ropes, wires and whatever material was on board so that he could not harm other passengers or jeopardize safety of the aircraft. The crew did just that and much like DiCaprio in the film, the passenger flew to Delhi firmly tied to his seat with a few strong flyers keeping a watchful eye on him. He was handed over to security agencies on arrival in Delhi.

Rats in theplane! 

An Air India aircraft had to be grounded on Monday evening due to the presence of a large number of unwelcome guests who posed a serious threat to the plane — scores of rats.

Rats were observed when the Airbus A-321, flying as AI 021, landed at IGI airport from Kolkata. The crew alerted fumigation specialist after they found rats running around in the rear half of the aircraft cabin. As soon as all the passengers alighted, the aircraft was taken out of service. Instead of being prepared for the next flight, this bigger version of the A-320 family of planes was taken to a remote bay for fumigation.

Once even a single rat is observed on an aircraft, the plane has to be fumigated. “Rats on board an aircraft can lead to a catastrophe if they start chewing up electric wires of a fly by wire plane. Pilots will have no control on any system on board leading to a disaster,” a senior commander said. What usually prevents such a situation is that passengers inadvertently drop a lot of food on the cabin floor, which keeps rats busy.

The most common way for rats to get on board an aircraft is through catering vans. ” Rats follow the large storage cases in which food trays are kept. The catering vans are like a home for them as food keeps getting dropped. Rats get on the high lifts that take those storage cases to aircraft and then remain there. This happens across the world,” said an official.