It turns out that even jetliners aren't immune to pests.
A Dublin-bound Flybe flight was forced to return to Southampton, England shortly after takeoff on Friday when a bee flew into one of the plane's outside instruments causing the pilot to "suspect a technical issue," according to a statement provided by the airline via CNN.
Despite the concern, the plane landed at Southampton Airport without issue.
"Flybe can confirm that flight BE384 traveling to Dublin returned from airborne to Southampton following a suspected technical issue," said the British low-cost regional carrier in a statement. "The aircraft landed without incident and all passengers disembarked as normal."
After the flight's passenger deplaned, engineers inspected the aircraft and that's when they found the unwelcome passenger and resolved the problem.
"Upon inspection, Flybe engineers did discover that the cause of the issue was a bee that had become lodged in an item of instrumentation on the outside of the aircraft," said the statement.
Flybe apologized to passengers for the unexpected delay but emphasized that ensuring the safety of its aircraft is the airline's top priority.
The Guardian points out that Friday's incident isn't the first involving troublesome insects and commercial flights. A similar incident involving flying insects occurred in the U.S. last year and wasps contributed to a tragedy in the Dominican Republic nearly two decades ago.
Fortunately, in this situation, no one was injured.
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