- Citilink Indonesia flight was kept waiting at Kualanamu International Airport
- Thousands of the insects descended onto the aeroplane’s right-hand wing
- Eventually, the local fire department removed the swarm with jets of water
There are numerous reasons why a chartered flight might be delayed.
But recent passengers on a Citilink Indonesia flight were stung by a rather unusual occurrence, earlier this week – after one of the plane’s wings was covered in bees.
The commuter flight, which was loaded with passengers, was about to depart from Indonesia’s Kualanamu International Airport, which serves the North Sumatra province, when thousands of the insects descended.
Swarm: Thousands of the insects descended onto the Citilink Indonesia flight right-hand wing
Perhaps they wanted a holiday? The insects caused a 90-minute delay to the journey
Images taken from inside the craft show more than half if the wing completely covered by the swarm, while other bees hover nearby.
Frustrated holiday-makers were left waiting more than 90 minutes for intervention from the local fire service, who dislodged the insects with jets of water.
Citilink corporate vice president, Benny Butarbutar, said: ‘At 12:30pm the bees were removed by spraying the wing with water from the airport fire extinguisher unit so that the wings would be clean again.’
He added that the aircraft was carefully checked over by maintenance workers before being allowed to make its journey.
Close-up: Images taken from inside the craft show more than half if the wing completely covered by the swarm, while other bees hover nearby
Solution: Eventually, the local fire service hosed the bees away with powerful water jets
Not that this is an aviation first, of course.
In August 2012 a Delta flight from Pittsburgh to New York was delayed after tens of thousands of honeybees descended on the plane’s wing.
After a delay of more than an hour, a local beekeeper was called in to collect the insects – which are deemed a protected species in the US.
‘They were getting ready to fuel and they came around the corner of the plane and right there on the wing is a cluster of honeybees,’ Master beekeeper Stephen Repasky of Meadow Sweet Apiaries told CBS Pittsburgh.