Disappearance of 'Hamster Capture' Incident on Chinese Aircraft... All Passengers Disembarked

Passengers experienced inconvenience, including a flight delay of over an hour, due to a passenger secretly bringing a hamster on board an aircraft in China.

Searching for a hamster on a China Eastern Airlines flight
Photo by CNN US website capture

On the 13th, Chinese media and the US CNN reported that on the 10th at 9:25 PM (local time), China Eastern Airlines flight MU5599, scheduled to depart from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport to Jinan, Shandong Province, was delayed for more than an hour. The cause of the delay was a missing 'hamster' on board. A passenger had secretly brought a hamster onto the plane, and when it went missing inside the cabin, flight attendants and passengers had to engage in a 'chase' to find the hamster.

The flight attendants first searched under the seats while passengers were still on board, but the hamster was not found. Eventually, all passengers were asked to disembark, and after thoroughly searching the cabin, the hamster was caught. Because of this, the aircraft was delayed by about an hour and finally took off at 10:33 PM. Passengers reportedly strongly protested to China Eastern Airlines and the woman responsible.

The passenger who secretly brought the hamster on board is a 34-year-old woman surnamed Guo (郭), who is currently detained by airport police and under investigation for disturbing public transportation order. In China, pets are not allowed on passenger flights except for guide dogs for visually or hearing-impaired individuals. Even guide dogs require airline approval during the check-in process.

Incidents of unauthorized pets being brought into aircraft cabins are not uncommon. In October last year, a commotion occurred on a VietJet Air flight from Thailand to Taiwan when a rat was spotted roaming inside the cabin. This happened because a Taiwanese woman smuggled a total of 33 live animals, including marmots (a type of squirrel), 28 turtles, and 2 rodents, in her carry-on luggage. Previously, in 2022, a similar incident occurred on a Hainan Airlines flight from Zhengzhou to Dalian, where a hamster brought by a passenger went missing, prompting a thorough search of the aisle.