Dog saves plane

Here's a shaggy dog story from Italy, reported today on the La Repubblica website. A 737 of the Romanian airline Blue Air, due to fly from Fiumicino to Bucharest, was taxiing to the runway when passengers saw a dog racing alongside the aircraft. Surprising enough, but a real shock to one passenger, Stoica Ionut, whose dog it was. He (the man, not the dog) alerted the flight crew immediately, and the aircraft was stopped short of the runway. What appears to have happened is that the dog, a 2 year-old Pomeranian, had been placed in a crate sealed with gaffer tape in the baggage hold, because the airline doesn't allow animals in the passenger cabin. He'd managed to chew through the tape and escape the crate, then leapt from the baggage compartment onto the runway because some dimwit in the ground crew had left the compartment door open. Had the aircraft taken off with the door open, it wouldn't have been able to pressurise and could have been in serious trouble - an aircraft a few years back lost cabin pressure in flight, resulting in the crew and passengers falling unconscious, and ended up crashing into a mountainside killing all on board [2].

So it was only through the dog's escape that the crew found out that the baggage door was open, and what could have been a major tragedy was averted. The dog could well have saved the lives of everyone on the plane by escaping then loyally trying to catch up with its master rather than legging it to freedom. Eat your heart out, Lassie!

[1] Fiumicino, si sfiora la tragedia. La Repubblica online, 10/8/07

[2] Loss of air pressure key to Helios plane crash, New Scientist online, 16/8/05