Stowaway Cat Accidentally Taken for Airplane Ride of a Lifetime
The pilot appears stunned after seeing the cat sitting on the wing of his plane.
— -- A pilot got a serious surprise while flying an open-air Skyranger plane.
Caught on video, as the plane ascended over Kourou in French Guiana, a cat appears from the wing, completely unstrapped and hanging on for dear life.
“I was extremely surprised when I saw her,” pilot Romain Jantot, 28, told ABC News. “I think my reaction on the video speaks for itself.”
Jantot is currently in training to become a professional helicopter pilot, and he practices at the “16-34 ULM Club,” where the cat is considered a mascot – yet she doesn’t have a name.
“She is going to be famous all over the world and she doesn't even have a name,” Jantot said of the feline, who goes by “Minou,” the French equivalent of “Kitty.” “She’s kind of the club’s mascot. We see her every day and everybody gives her food when they’re at the club.”
Jantot said it was not he first time Minou has been in a plane’s wing, but it was “ thefirst time she was in the wing while the plane was in the air,” he said.
“Her presence was not dangerous for the flight at all, but I just wanted to be sure that she wasn’t going to jump. So I slowed down the engine and I saw that she was already less afraid. If I had started to make big gestures she would have definitely tried to get out of the wing,” he explained. “I warned the passenger once I saw that everything was going OK. Then we took off again after having dropped off the cat.”
Minou was not harmed, and according to Jantot, just “ten minutes later, she had her nose in her food."
