Animal News
A kitten flew from Athens to Zurich
hidden in the landing gear compartment of an Airbus.
The black and white moggie was detected after landing on Wednesday and
had to be cared for by a veterinarian. It survived the trip with very
little oxygen and freezing temperatures, a Swiss airline spokeswoman
said.
The stray kitten had caused a two-hour delay before the flight took off
from Athens in Greece. Ground staff saw it roaming around the plane and
launched a search for it, fearing that it had climbed aboard. The
aircraft landed in Kloten at 10.21am instead of at 8.20am as scheduled.
“A cat was prowling around the Airbus A321 in Athens. Suddenly it
vanished,” said Swiss airline spokeswoman Myriam Ziesack.
“Ground staff thought it had got into the undercarriage, but after two
hours of searching they still hadn’t found it,” said Ziesack. She said
that the captain and technicians had then decided to take off as
otherwise the delay to that flight and subsequent flights would have
been too great. The flight was uneventful and it was only after the
plane had landed that the animal was discovered in the front
undercarriage.
“It is amazing as the temperature can drop to minus 50 degrees there
and there’s very little oxygen,” Ziesack said. An animal rescue service
has taken charge of the cat, which was not needed to be taken into
quarantine. “It’s now being nursed back to health,” said Zurich health
service spokeswoman Franziska Egli.
Airline staff have taken the cat to their hearts, christening it Oscar Fox after the last two letters of the airbus’s identifier.
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