An Americans Airlines flight was canceled on Sunday after flight crew spotted a scorpion on board.
The plane was due to depart from Sacramento on the morning of Sept. 10. The previous day the plane had been in Phoenix, where American Airlines spokeswoman Leslie Scott thinks the
scorpion boarded, UPI reported.
The more than 100 passengers were informed of the unusual reason for their flight’s cancellation as they waited to board. At that time the airline was still trying to determine what to do. They eventually made the decision to
cancel the flight to Chicago.
Passengers were transferred to alternate flights, Los Angeles Times reported. The plane was then taken to a maintenance facility to be fumigated and to dispose of the scorpion.
In May, a flight in Houston was delayed for several hours after a scorpion was purportedly seen crawling out of a sleeping passengers sleeve. The man awoke and flung the scorpion from his hand, causing the crew to lose track of it after it crawled under a seat. United Airlines delayed the departure by three and a half hours and switched planes before heading to its destination in Ecuador.
In April, a passenger got stung by a scorpion on a United flight from Houston to Calgary after it fell from an overhead bin onto the man’s head. The man plucked the scorpion off of him, but when he tried to pick it up again he was stung on the hand. Another passenger stomped the creature to death and flight crew flushed it down the toilet.
Emergency medical personnel, fire department staff, and police boarded the flight when it landed in Calgary. The man told medical personnel that he did not need to go to the hospital or require
further medical treatment, Global News reported. The medical personnel were unable to confirm that the creature was indeed a scorpion.
“It felt like a wasp sting,” said the passenger aboard the Calgary flight.
According to the Mayo Clinic,
scorpion stings are rarely fatal. The potency of venom varies in different species, and some scorpion stings don’t require treatment. The bark scorpion is the deadliest in the United States, and one of the deadliest in the world. Its venom can cause numbness, tingling, severe pain in adults, lasting between 24 and 72 hours. Deaths from the sting are rare.
