Stowaway mouse seeks holiday in the sun

An SAS flight from Oslo to Malaga had to make an unscheduled stop in Copenhagen when a stowaway was spotted on board.

Barely had the plane reached the coastline when a mouse leapt out of a passenger’s food tray and began to scurry unimpeded around the cabin to the horror of everyone on board.

The normally 3.5-hour SAS Scandinavian Airlines flight taking Norwegian holidaymakers to the popular Costa del Sol destination was diverted to Copenhagen for safety reasons and to eject the intruder. After circling the airport a couple of times, a landing slot was found for the unscheduled plane, and it landed safely so that the 180 passengers on board could disembark.

Luckily, a replacement aircraft was quickly found, and the holidaymakers could continue on to Malaga. Although a few hours late, the passengers safely touched down at Malaga Costa del Sol airport at 8pm to continue with their holidays.

Was the tourist mouse ever found?

A spokesperson for SAS confirmed to local press that there had been a mouse on board that had somehow stowed away and then escaped inside the plane, and that making a stopover was standard procedure for safety reasons. No statement was made on whether they caught the mouse.

Mouse and rat stowaways are not that unusual, although the former gives much more cause for concern as they have big enough teeth to nibble through electrical cables. In 2021, four kittens surprised the baggage handlers in Hong Kong on a flight that had just arrived from Singapore. Also in 2021, a giant tarantula was discovered on a flight from Brazil to Mexico.