The strange incident occurred at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (CCU) in Kolkata, India. A swarm of bees stuck on a fuselage of a parked Vistara Airbus A320neo jet.
The incident occurred on November 30, 2020. Following the attack, the insects could not be removed humanely, therefore the fire department of CCU airport was forced to deploy water trucks to get rid of honeybees stuck on the body of the parked aircraft.
According to flight history found on FlightRadar24.com, the aircraft arrived to Kolkata Airport from Bhubaneswar Airport (BBI), India, in the late hours of November 28, 2020. After a night spent being parked at CCU airport, the jet was supposed to operate a regular flight to Delhi Airport (DEL), but a swarm of bees postponed the airline’s plans by holding up the flight for almost an hour.
In order to prevent similar incidents in the future, the airport authorities searched the area around and sprayed particular insecticides, said Kaushik Bhattacharjee, the Director of CCU airport, speaking to local media.
“On both occasions, fire brigade personnel sprayed water from water cannons on the swarm of bees to drive them away. Following the back to back incidents, a team of officials from Kolkata airport searched the area and sprayed insecticide in the surrounding places. However, even after an extensive search, no beehives were spotted in the zone,” said Bhattacharjee.
The video found on social media showed bees attached to a window of the plane. The swarm decided to take a rest next to the right forward passenger door.