Stowaway kitten survives flight from Athens to Zurich in landing gear compartment of Airbus

A kitten flew from Athens to Zurich hidden in the landing gear compartment of an Airbus. The black and white moggie was detected after landing on Wednesday and had to be cared for by a veterinarian. It survived the trip with very little oxygen and freezing temperatures, a Swiss airline spokeswoman said.
 
   

The stray kitten had caused a two-hour delay before the flight took off from Athens in Greece. Ground staff saw it roaming around the plane and launched a search for it, fearing that it had climbed aboard. The aircraft landed in Kloten at 10.21am instead of at 8.20am as scheduled. “A cat was prowling around the Airbus A321 in Athens. Suddenly it vanished,” said Swiss airline spokeswoman Myriam Ziesack.

“Ground staff thought it had got into the undercarriage, but after two hours of searching they still hadn’t found it,” said Ziesack. She said that the captain and technicians had then decided to take off as otherwise the delay to that flight and subsequent flights would have been too great. The flight was uneventful and it was only after the plane had landed that the animal was discovered in the front undercarriage.



“It is amazing as the temperature can drop to minus 50 degrees there and there’s very little oxygen,” Ziesack said. An animal rescue service has taken charge of the cat, which was not needed to be taken into quarantine. “It’s now being nursed back to health,” said Zurich health service spokeswoman Franziska Egli. Airline staff have taken the cat to their hearts, christening it Oscar Fox after the last two letters of the airbus’s identifier.