Baggage handlers discovered that the cages meant to contain the hamsters were damaged and empty. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Portugal's TAP airlines reportedly had to take a plane out of service for days to scour the aircraft for hamsters that got out of their cages.

Several hundred hamsters transported on a TAP passenger plane from Lisbon to the Azores managed to escape and spread throughout the aircraft's interior. Due to this incident, the plane was unable to return to Portugal's capital for five days,

Hamsters ‘running amok’ ground TAP plane in Azores; €100,000 craft ‘stranded’ as 132 hamsters have to be recaptured

It was a wheel hassle for the maintenance crew. A TAP Air Portugal plane was stranded on an airport runway in the Azores for four days after more than 130 hamsters broke free from their cages and invaded every nook and cranny of the Airbus 320.

The TAP Air Portugal plane was grounded at Ponta Delgada Airport on Sao Miguel Island until the aircraft was accessed for damage, and all rodents were captured

A Portuguese airline was forced to ground one of its passenger planes last week after 132 hamsters broke free from their cages in the cargo hold and began running freely all over the aircraft, according to local media.

A plane in Portugal has been grounded for five days after more than a hundred hamsters escaped their cage, with 16 still unaccounted for.

More than 130 hamsters grounded a plane for five days after they broke free and ran riot inside the cargo hold.