I've heard of rats abandoning a sinking ship, but has it gotten so bad in America that mice are trying to escape to China?

Oi, don't be an idiot. You know perfectly well what they meant. All of the China recall stuff is getting old.

Besides, despite what you may think, foreign rodents can cause huge problems. Rabbits in Australia anybody?

the mice were taliban trained mice. very dangerous extremist mice that hate infidels, have been known to be operating in kfc/taco bells across the country. damn i those were rats......oh well they all look the same.

Geee... Great... I'm flying on a United flight tomorrow. I knew I should have stuck to my guns and told them I would just drive the 400 miles.

the surviving mice were sent to labs for testing."

Testing for what... to see if they could fly the plane?

Perhaps it was more of an interrogation. These jihadi mice were going to planning down a plane; they've done it before. In such perilous times, drastic measures were required. The rodents were waterboarded on itty bitty little tables with teensy tiny blindfolds and and eye dropper. The information was valuable, the videotapes were burned, lives saved.

Maybe they are friends of Stuart Little, returning lead toys.

Also, Not the control cables, but the plastic covered electronic cable that conrtol almost everything.

Boeing's (except for 787) have some direct steel cable control wires.

Airbus's are fly by wire.

@MBZ321:Couldn't have said it better myself.

@darkclawsofchaos: You think zip-lock bags would work in this case?

I haven't had mice on a plane or snakes for that matter, but I've sure been a long-haul light that had cabin lights that didn't turn off, failing ovens and water heaters (The ones they use to heat your food and make your tea). Let's not forget the fuzzy movie screen. Makes you wonder if rodents are chewing through the cables.

As several people have noted, mice chewing through cables could be a major problem. I was surprised that they used rat poison here. The poison doesn't take effect immediately, so the mice could eat the poison, then head back to their hiding place to die. Then a few weeks later people may notice a bad smell as the rat slowly decomposes (and maybe other things start feeding off the decomposing body).

Hopefully no one is eating breakfast\lunch\dinner as they are reading this.

@nycs:

Checked the link (eeeeeeew!). I can only bring 3oz of germ gel with me? That's going to keep me safe?

They are banned because mice usually contain more than 3 ounces of liquid :D

And yes, I know they are made of steel. And yes I know that the standard procedure is to fumigate, but I have PERSONALLY been involved with a plane that did have a mouse problem and DID go in for C-Check because of it. I was just a lowly dispatcher at the time and didn;t have access to aircraft rotation schedules, but true no less.

I know someone who was on an LAX-JFK flight and a mouse ran across his feet. Yikes!

You do realize that control cables are made out of steel, right? The mice are going to chew through -that- ?

They don't do C-checks just because a rodent(s) were found onboard either. Inspections (for damaged electrical cables), yes.

"rat poison and mouse traps at every possible corner on the aircraft"
...
"the surviving mice were sent to labs for testing."

I guess the Chinese rat poison didn't work? Surprise, Surprise...I guess they put all the real poison into the pet food they shipped to us...

(ok, ok...I guess they could've used live traps...but that isn't as funny...)

Back to the article:
I'll rest easy knowing that UA is taking the matter seriously...just like in every other press release out there...

@MBZ321:

"THERE'S MOTHERF*CKING MICE ON THIS MOTHERF*CKING PLANE!!!!!"

First thing I thought of. lol. WOw! Thate actually NEED snakes on a plane to handle the mice... lol.

Ugh.... My skin just crawled reading "mice in the pillows".

Fly the bubonic skies!

I remember during training (in the 80's) that every year, 20 planes crashed due to rodents chewing thru control cables.