This archive report was first published on 16 September 2019.
On September 15, 2019, a peculiar incident occurred at the Kolkata airport in eastern India, where a swarm of bees landed on the cockpit window of an Air India flight, delaying its departure.
The flight, which was scheduled to leave with 136 passengers, including Bangladesh's information minister, was delayed for over three and a half hours.
According to airport officials, the bees were attracted to the cockpit window and refused to budge, prompting ground staff to try and shoo them away. However, their attempts only seemed to anger the bees further.
As a last resort, officials resorted to using water to dislodge the bees, with fire tenders being deployed to spray water to drive them away.
"Fire tenders were deployed to spray water to dislodge the honey bees and they could be driven away after nearly an hour-long operation," airport official Kaushik Bhattcharya told AFP.
