Bees that were illegally loaded onto a Russian passenger plane managed to escape from the hive while the aircraft was at an altitude of 10.000 meters, causing panic among passengers, said a spokesman for the regional airline Yakutia airline.
"It was terrible, the passengers were in shock, many had sweating attacks from fear," Andrey Savostin told Agence France-Presse, referring to the flight of the "Boeing" type plane, which flew from Blagoveshchensk in the Russian Far East to Moscow.
The incident took place on May 28, but was only published on Thursday in an article in the state-run newspaper Rosijska Gazeta. Deputy General Director of the airport Anatoly Smirnov loaded two boxes into the plane, one of which contained bees.
He placed them in the luggage compartment of the business class and left the plane without going through the security check, the newspaper writes. There were 193 children on the plane with 30 passengers, and as soon as the aircraft reached 10.000 meters, bees began to fly out of the small cargo hold.
The women started screaming, and the staff reacted quickly and calmly, managing to tape the trunk to prevent the bees from still flying out, and managed to kill those that were already in the cabin.
The local prosecutor launched an investigation into the incident, as the transportation of insects by plane is prohibited in Russia.
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