Mouse Grounds British Airways Flight To America

London: A US-bound British Airways plane was unable to take off from Heathrow Airport here after a mouse was spotted on board.

Passengers on the British Airways flight to San Francisco were strapped in and waiting to leave when the "rather unusual occurrence" was announced. The crew told passengers that planes cannot take off with mice on board, and that another flight would be scheduled. The presence of a roaming rodent meant the original aircraft could not be dispatched because mice have been known to gnaw through wiring on planes and wide-ranging checks must be made to ferret out any problems.

The plane eventually left after about four hours of delay, BBC reported. A passenger named Carly was quoted as saying that there was "general disbelief" among fellow travellers when the news was broken on the plane. "I'm not sure people knew how to react," she said. She said they had been told that another plane had been found, but the passengers would have to wait several hours for a gate to be found before it could take off. Some of the flight's passengers tweeted their reactions.

"Just had my flight to SFO cancelled because of a mouse on board the plane. Could it not get a visa?? #britishairways", a person said. "About to fly to SF, There is a mouse on the plane, We all must get off," said another netizen. "I'm going to sell this to the movies. It can be the slightly more pedestrian prequel to snakes on a plane. Maybe this is what lured them on?" the netizen said.

British Airways was quoted as saying, "We know almost everyone wants to fly with us to San Francisco, but on this occasion there was one very small customer who we had to send back to the gate. "Everyone with two legs is now on their way to California, and we are sorry for the delay," the airlines said.

Heathrow Airport said it could not comment on individual flights.