You would think that while flying up in the air, far away from the insect-covered ground, you would be totally safe from any kind of insect invasion. Plane flights already aren’t the most enjoyable experience, what with the crowded seats and the crying babies, but at least you are safe from any spiders crawling inside your mouth while you sleep or cockroaches scuttling across the floor…right? Well, apparently no place is sacred or safe from insects, and you just might find that those pests we think are constrained to the earthly ground are just as able to hop a flight from New York to L. A. just as easily as us humans can. An Air New Zealand flight traveling from Perth, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand recently had some issues with invading cockroaches. No place is safe from these pests.
One of the passengers on a recent Air New Zealand flight was unhappily surprised when he noticed cockroaches running around the plane while they were up in the air. He managed to kill a few of the offending pests and showed them to the crew, but claimed that they weren’t interested in the dead bug, and simply ignored his complaint. Of course, thanks to the invention of smart phones, the man was able to get proof of the insect invasion to show to the public. He recorded video of the bugs crawling on the back of other passenger’s seats, and even on top of passengers themselves. After seeing a cockroach crawl along the arm of a sleeping female passenger in front of him, he told local news that, “All I can say is when one crawled up the arm of the girl in front of me I am glad she was asleep, the screams would have hurt.”
The man was eventually informed by a crew member that they had informed the pilot, and a biosecurity officer questioned him about the bugs and how many of them he had seen as he was leaving the plane. Air New Zealand announced that the bugs were apparently going to be addressed and the plane sprayed in order to get rid of the pests. This isn’t the first and only flight bugs have been found on in the past, however, so I would be careful next time you step onto a plane.
Have you ever seen insects while on an airplane? What did the crew and company do about it?