Live mouse in in-flight meal forces flight to make emergency landing

In a bizarre on-flight incident, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) was forced to make an emergency landing in Copenhagen after a passenger found a live mouse in her in-flight meal. The SAS flight from Norway's Oslo was headed to Malaga in Spain.

Terming the incident an "extremely rare" occurrence, the SAS spokesperson Oystein Schmidt said the flight was diverted for the safety of passengers and the crew.

According to the BBC report, the SAS plane underwent a thorough inspection on landing to locate the mouse.

Airlines usually have strict restrictions on rodents on board since they can chew through electrical wiring.

"This is something that happens extremely rarely. We have established procedures for such situations, which also include a review with our suppliers to ensure this does not happen again," Schmidt said.

Sharing the incident on Facebook, a passenger, Jarle Borrestad, wrote: "Believe it or not. A lady next to me at SAS opened the food and jumped a mouse out. Now we have turned around and landed at CPH [Copenhagen Airport] for flight changes."

He also remembered taking preventive measures, such as pulling his socks over the hems of his pants to stop the mouse from climbing up. Despite the startling find, he observed that the other passengers stayed remarkably composed, exhibiting no signs of panic. Following a short postponement of a few hours in Copenhagen, the journey to Malaga resumed on an alternate plane.

The incident follows another rodent-related interruption last week, when a train service in southern England was halted mid-journey because two squirrels would not vacate the carriage.

A Great Western Railway spokesperson had said: "We can confirm that the 0854 Reading to Gatwick was terminated at Redhill after a couple of squirrels boarded the train at Gomshall without tickets, breaching railway byelaws. We attempted to remove them at Redhill, but one refused to leave and was returned to Reading to bring an end to this nutty tail."