Rodents onboard
By Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
Westridge, Rawalpindi

 

Some hefty and robust mice were found in a plane of a private airlines. This is a very serious and highly hazardous matter. The rodents are known to relish to gnaw at and chew upon the plastic outer covering of cables thus rendering the inside current carrying conductors bare which could cause short circuiting.

There is no dearth of such wires and cables running all over the aircraft. Some of these wires carry higher voltages for the lights, fans, kitchen appliances, motors and AC, etc. Others carry lower voltages for a plethora of highly sensitive and crucial communication and navigational gadgets and avionics. Any short circuiting of the higher voltage carrying wires could ignite a fire. Nothing could be more dangerous for both the plane and the passengers than, God forbid, any of these happening. Now all wiring and cabling of the plane is concealed and once the presence of a rodent is established in an aircraft, no matter for how small a period,  no one can say for sure that none of the wires have not been damaged. The entire cable network and harnesses have got to be thoroughly checked and tested to ensure that no short-circuiting would take place at any future time.  That means grounding of the plane for quite some time to check it up thoroughly.

I sincerely hope the airlines would do that and not just get rid of the mice and put the bird to flying again.