Flight Delayed in Russia after Pigeon enters aircraft's cabin

An Aero flight SU1730 that was flying from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in central-eastern Russia, near the Kamchatka Krai region, reportedly faced peculiar challenges in the form of birds. Pigeons which normally cause problems for flights outside the plane ended up delaying the flight by a full 20 minutes by sneaking into the cabin and terrorising the cabin crew.

The story

According to a local tabloid, the flight was delayed for more than 20 minutes. During that time the pigeon was seen flying at high speeds within the cabin while the staff tried to hurriedly catch it.
It is believed that the bird may have sneaked inside the cabin while the plane was undergoing mandatory cleaning maintenance between flights.

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Back on track

The bird was eventually caught and released after the successful efforts by the staff to catch it but it still managed to delay the flight by 20 minutes. However, it was reported that no passengers were onboard during the time of the incident and therefore no injury was recorded either.

One person commenting on the pigeon incident online said, "I am pretty sure that this pigeon has managed to lay its eggs in there in that time." would certainly explain why the pigeon didn't want to leave.

Another user added, " Such a determined pigeon, I bet it was trying to migrate to its family or bring them something from the capital city. Well, it would not be right of us to speculate on how much cabin luggage pigeon stowaways are assigned on flights".

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More serious problems

The minor inconvenience of the passengers this time was negligible compared to when a flock of birds got stuck in an engine mid-flight in Russia in August forcing a landing as the engine caught fire. Miraculously all 226 people on board were evacuated and only 74 suffered from minor injuries. The pilot, Captain Yusupov was hailed as a hero.

Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow is the busiest airport in all of Russia with over 45 million passengers passing through its gates in 2018 alone.