Rodents onboard
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.. Whereas others carry lower voltages for a plethora of
highly sensitive and crucial communication and navigational gadgets and the
avionics. Any short circuiting of the higher voltage carrying wires could
ignite a fire and that of the other wires and cables put the vital avionics and
flying apparatuses out of order. 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 p! resence 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.
Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
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