Flight Grounded As Hundreds of Hamsters Escape in Cargo Hold ‘Prison Break’

Most people who have traveled by air will have experienced delays or cancellations beyond their control, very often due to issues with the aircraft or staff.

The last thing you would expect to ground a plane would be hundreds of hamsters getting loose in the aircraft, but that’s exactly what happened to one pilot.

Cargo pilot Robert has shared a resurfaced clip from a 2017 flight he had been due to be in charge of, but which was canceled as countless cuddly rodents escaped their cages and took over the plane. “We came to the aircraft, and the mayhem just happened. It was immediately clear this plane will not go anywhere,” he told Newsweek.

In the video, shared to his TikTok account @CargoPilot747 on July 23, he showed the stacked cages on the plane, many filled with hamsters, but many not. Plenty of the pets had staged what he called a “hamsters prison break” and were crawling on the floor and climbing between the cages.

Robert wrote on the video: “Cargo plane grounded by hamsters. This plane goes nowhere.” And, zooming up on a little white hamster that had found a hiding spot, he added: “Hi there!”

In a caption, he wrote: “The hamsters broke loose and put the Boeing AOG [aircraft on ground].”

Robert told Newsweek that the cargo flight did not take off that day, and when they arrived, “maintenance was on it already, so we all went home again.”

As the aircraft didn’t fly, he had no record log of the flight or where it had been due to fly, but when he rediscovered his seven-year-old clip, he knew he had to share it to TikTok.

And it proved hugely popular on the app, racking up over 33,000 likes and more than 610,000 views, with hundreds commenting, including one who asked, in all-caps: “Who in their right mind gave them wooden enclosures?!”

Another joked it was the “cute and child friendly version of snakes on a plane,” referencing the 2006 cult classic horror starring Samuel L Jackson.

“Was it going to Hamsterdam?” a third posted. And one asked the burning question, “How many escaped?” to which Robert replied: “A few hundred.”

Hamsters can still be found in the wild across parts of Europe and Asia, according to National Geographic, but in the United States, are popular as pets, usually kept in cages with supervised outside play.

Hamsters’ teeth never stop growing, and they require plenty to gnaw on; their powerful teeth can easily chew through wood. Some of the very first captive hamsters actually escaped by chewing through their boxes, according to the Humane Society.

The Humane Society describes the animals as escape artists, who must be closely supervised if allowed outside their enclosure.

Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.