Raccoon delays Toronto-bound Air Canada flight

A raccoon caught inside an Air Canada jet delayed a Toronto-bound flight for a number of hours on Thursday at Saskatoon’s airport. The animal was apparently, in response to the airline, hidden contained in the hose of an air-con unit when a floor crew related the unit to the airplane.  The raccoon then “scampered up and into the duct system,” of the Embraer E90, mentioned spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick in an electronic mail to CBC Information.  Flight AC1126 was alleged to take off at 2:50 p.m. CST.  As a substitute, passengers like Damien Lee watched the drama unfold from the terminal.  “For the primary hour, it was actually novel,” mentioned Lee, a College of Saskatchewan affiliate professor headed to Toronto to hunt for a brand new house. “Nobody’s ever seen something like this.” However after three hours folks had been “beginning to get somewhat extra cranky, rather less ,” he mentioned.  Panels faraway from airplane Lee observed one thing was up when the luggage from the earlier flight had been being unloaded. A member of the bottom crew was “type of wide-eyed; you would see that he was actually stunned and undecided what to do.” Inside an hour, as much as 15 folks had been huddled exterior the airplane, together with flight employees and members of an animal management unit, in response to Lee. Ultimately some panels had been taken off the airplane. Air Canada defined the delay to passenger Damien Lee through Twitter. (Damien Lee) At 8:27 p.m., Lee texted CBC Information.  “The raccoon is out. Alive,” he mentioned. Nevertheless it had additionally escaped.   Lee despatched a photograph of a person holding an animal service on the tarmac.  The unidentified man did “a number of the work” making an attempt to get the raccoon out, mentioned Lee.  However, he mentioned, “the raccoon is NOT within the kennel… It ran off.” Animal management personnel went away empty-handed after the raccoon was faraway from the airplane and instantly ran off. (Damien Lee) Stephen Maybury, the president and CEO of the Saskatoon Airport Authority, mentioned the incident is definitely uncommon however not unprecedented — final yr bees delayed a WestJet flight on the identical airport. Lee mentioned he has no unwell will in opposition to the airline, which gave out $10 meals vouchers to passengers mid-way by way of the wait. “They’re doing actually all they’ll do,” he mentioned. “This isn’t human error, I might say.” Clients had been additionally supplied a reduction on a future flight. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/raccoon-air-canada-delay-1.4647867?cmp=rss