Agartala-bound AI flight delayed after bees enter cockpit

In a bizarre incident, an Air India (AI) flight bound to Agartala in Tripura was delayed for around an hour after a swarm of bees engulfed the airfield site and entered the plane's cockpit at the Kolkata airport.

The incident took place on Sunday when the flight, carrying over 100 passengers, was taxiing on the runway due to technical issues, an airport official said.

"The incident happened yesterday at Kolkata airport when the flight was taxiing on the runway due to technical issues. Later, bees entered in the cockpit and airfield site and it was a challenging task for the AI engineers to rectify and attend to the aircraft's glitches," the official said.

The official said that the airport's fire brigade team was called in and managed to remove the bees by sprinkling water.

"Later, the airport's fire brigade team was called in for removing the bees from the aircraft. The team sprinkled water for removing bees and succeeded finally. The above exercise took around an hour," the official added.

The flight departed for Agartala soon after.