Bees delay departure of Port Blair-bound flight

Departure of a Port Blair-bound flight of Kingfisher Airlines was delayed by about half-an-hour on Monday after the aircraft was swarmed by a huge number of bees, when it was parked on Bay No. 26, having aerobridge facility.

According to airport sources, flight IT – 3632 arrived from Port Blair around 10.20 a.m.

When the airline staff were about to re-fuel the aircraft, they found a large number of bees on the starboard leading edge, also known as right-side wing.

Fire tender

Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials sent a fire tender to the bay and water was sprinkled on the bees to drive them away.

Operation lasted 15 minutes

The operation lasted about 15 minutes and all the bees were driven away from the aircraft.

Even when the operation was on, the aircraft allowed the boarding of passengers.

Once it operation was completed, the aircraft was taken to a remote parking bay where the luggage was loaded.

A senior AAI official said some years ago bees settled on the nose of an Air India aircraft. It took more than an hour for the officials to drive them away.

On Monday, more than 10,000 bees could have swarmed the aircraft, the official added.