United Airlines passengers were in for quite the shock on a recent flight when they noticed a pretty large cockroach scurrying across the cabin wall during boarding.
You can hear panic and fear in the voices of some of the passengers during a short video clip which was recently uploaded to X (formerly Twitter) showing the cockroach brazenly pass them in broad day light.
The sighting happened during the boarding process, so it could be that the roach’s hiding place was disturbed, and it was making a run for another hiding place… somewhere, hopefully that passengers won’t have to see it again.
Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly when this happened or what airplane it happened on but what can tell you is that roach sightings on planes aren’t all that uncommon.
Admittedly, cockroaches aren’t normally as big as that seen in this video, nor are they normally so brazen to go scurrying past passengers but lurking on many planes you may find some sort of creepy crawly.
Back in 2021, a group of British Airways cabin crew even uploaded a video onto social media of a cockroach crawling around the galley area on a flight from New York JFK to London.
The pest extermination company Rentokil describes cockroaches as being “synonymous with filth and poor hygiene” and says they can transmit a number of diseases including Salmonella, E.coli and Listeriosis.
In very serious cases, cockroaches are also linked with Cholera, Dysentry and Leprosy according to Rentokil.
Mice and rats can also occasionally make their way onto commercial jets, although this is considered a much bigger threat than cockroaches because rodents are likely to gnaw through electrical wiring which could pose a big danger.
Also, at British Airways, In 2018, a flight attendant won a payout from the airline after he was bitten by a “venomous insect” during a flight. A judge ordered BA to pay the flight attendant £13,000 after he suffered a serious infection from the bite which required hospital treatment.
An expert suggested the bite was caused by a brown recluse spider – a venomous spider that is native to North America. The spider must have been onboard the now-retired Boeing 747 for some time because the bite occurred during a flight from London Heathrow to Denver.