Racial profiling may be too controversial too touch but just wait until somebody suggests species profiling:
An escaped pet cat created a scare on a Belgian airliner, forcing the crew to turn back to Brussels 20 minutes into its journey.
“We 100% support the decision made by the captain,” Geert Sciot, the airline’s communication vice-president, told the BBC.
Nobody, he said, could tell what an agitated cat what might do in the circumstances, scrabbling around amid the sensitive equipment in the cockpit of the Avro RJ.
An agitated domestic cat is a truly frightening thing. It could have been armed with a machine-gun or a bomb. Who knows what it could have done? Maybe it intended to overpower the crew, take over the plane and crash it into a building? Nobody would be able to stop it!! Terror in the skies!!!
“It took a long time to catch it,” he noted, describing the offending beast – said by Brussels newspaper La Derniere Heure to be a tom by the name of Gin – as “very aggressive”.
It was wielding a box-cutter and screaming ‘death to the Yankee imperialist dogs’.
This is a tragically inevitable result of the constant human meddling in the domestic affairs of cats.
Obviously an agent of Puss-ama bin Laden.
Very funny headline, David.
But you’ve obviously never had to try to catch a panicked cat – given that cats have powerful hind legs (their hind legs can propel them in a jump four times their own height with ease) with knife-like claws on the end that they use to rip out the bellies and throats of their prey. In extremis, these are also used on people.
Claws on the end of front legs are used for your basic shredding. That’s why they call cats the tiger in the house.
I cannot imagine a cat being allowed on board an aeroplane, especially in rule-ridden Europe, unless secure in a cage. So this one was so frightened, it manoevred its way out of its cage and went seeking freedom.
I was on a flight to Anchorage once and there was a young cat – maybe not yet a year old – that was in the cabin in a secure cage. But it got out. It never made it to the cockpit, so didn’t threaten Big Ben or anything, but it created total havoc in the cabin for around 25 minutes. We should applaud the cat’s independence of spirit which has allowed it survive unchanged for 10s of thousands of years.
You don’t get St Bernard shaped cats, or wolfhound sized cats, or chihuahua sized cats. No breeder has succeeded in altering their perfect structure – except in trivial ways. Cats have walked on their lone for ever, and their skeletons exactly match skeletons found 100,000 years ago. I’ll bet you can’t say the same for Belgian airline pilots.
I flew on a cross-country flight (in the US) with a cat about six years ago. The cat was allowed to ride in the passenger compartment, in a lightweight folding carrier that fit under the seat. This particular cat had a rather sedate personality, and refrained from any hijacking attempts.
I’m with Verity. The thought of a panicked cat in the cockpit of a plane I was flying on strikes me as terrifying.
You mean to tell me that cockpits on these planes are so insecure that an animal completely lacking in opposable thumbs can get into it? How is a cockpit without (apparently) a door of any kind supposed to keep out a real live human highjacker?
David, although the post was hilarious, you clearly don’t have a cat. Well i do (two as a matter of fact) and the idea of having a scared cat in the cockpit of a airplane sent chills down my spine.
I’m a coward you say? Let’s just say i have the scars to justify my cowardice.
Although it’s not in the bbc article, another one I read said that the cat got into the cockpit while a flight attendant was delivering (or removing) food for the crew.
Good headline 🙂
As the preferred human of a cat myself, I’ll definitely agree that you don’t want to mess with an angry or panicked cat. Next thing you know, you’re dealing with a warner-brothers like cloud of fur, teeth and claws. 🙂
I was once among the ranks of the nearly pilots… I was honoured to be partly owned by a Cessna 172 and thus was one annointed into the exalted ranks of those who take part in hanger talk. (No member of the general public should ever be allowed into such ranks as they would never again be willing to set foot in an airport, let alone an airplane).
One of the stories was about a pilot who for some reason had a cat in his light plane. Whether his pet, or that of family or friends I do not remember. And whether due to turbulence or sharp maneuver I also do not remember… but said cat become quite paniced and attached itself to said pilots head…
I will leave the rest of the story to your imagination.
Pilot and airplane *did* return to earth and the airplane, at least, was unscathed.
R Dale – Yes, and it’s your hair, teeth, nails and blood. The cat will be fine after the brouhaha and will sit down somewhere conspicious, undamaged, and wash itself with elegant, showy gestures.
You don’t have to be trying to capture a panicked cat in the cockpit of a plane to get this effect. All you have to do is try to give your cat a pill.
Anyway, maybe the cat in the cockpit was ‘sleeper’ assassin and had just been activated. It was the Manchurian Catidate.
Al-Cat’ta indeed.
They are everywhere, they have infiltrated as sleeper agents for decades.
They watch everything through their lazy 1/2 closed eyes.
What are their plans?
Who is their master?
What shadowy plots do thier fertil little minds think of.
Methinks it’s time to bring the in for a little questioning.
Fred – Who is their master? For shame!
Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.
The pet’s owner is the obvious culprit.
There exists a perfecly safe pet-carrier on the market:
http://www.grouchyoldcripple.com/archives/001269.html
That could have been a real Cat-a-strophe! Having had a number of cat’s over the years, I think I would rather have had to deal with a snake. At least they can’t shred you!
The Grey Monk – Having had a number of cat’s what over the years?
Where’s Alf when you need him?