Remember the blog I wrote detailing my daughter’s alleged mouse sighting during our flight to Hawaii earlier this year? That post also contained information about an actual mouse sighting made by flight attendants on a plane bound from Des Moines, Iowa to Atlanta, Georgia.
Well, critters have struck again.
Not Mickey and friends; rather some smaller but equally unwanted pests—ticks!
And take note: The bloodsuckers were found on a United Airlines flight from Denver to… you guessed it… Des Moines.
According to United officials, the wayward bugs delayed Flight 1178 for nearly six hours on Tuesday after a passenger informed a flight attendant that she found a hungry tick on her seat in economy class during a flight from Washington, D.C., to Denver.
Airline officials say they decided to ground the plane until it was cleaned of ticks. In the meantime, passengers had to wait while another plane was flown from Colorado Springs to Denver. Once that plane landed the Des Moines-bound flight was delayed again because of thunderstorms in the Denver area.
United cleaning crews revealed that they found three ticks on the airplane, but officials with the airline say they have yet to deduce how the ticks got on the plane. Airline officials also noted that they planned to test to see if the ticks were infected with Lyme disease.
According to United, the replacement plane shuttled 107 passengers to Des Moines while the other plane was de-ticked and put back into service.
Airline officials say passengers were encouraged to examine themselves for ticks before boarding the replacement plane, and according to flight attendants, none of the passengers reported finding ticks on their bodies.
Incidentally, the plane carrying the ticks reportedly began its day in Chicago… the same place our flight with the alleged stowaway mouse originated from a few months ago.
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