This called for a Samuel L. Jackson exclamation.

An Air India flight destined for Dubai was delayed most of an hour after a beehive was discovered near the tip of one of the wings of the plane.

Which, of course, brings to mind Samuel L.’s memorable declaration during an otherwise forgettable movie:

“Who let the #%!$@ snakes … on the #^$!& plane?!?”

That comes from the 2006 film Snakes on a Plane … and if you think about it, Bees on a Plane would be almost as nasty. Snakes, at least, can’t fly around inside a cabin.

This link takes you to a batch of photos inexpertly stacked, but about halfway down the string of snaps you can see what is really a fairly impressive swarm of bees on the raised end of the wing. And, in another photo, the man in a hazmat suit dispatched to, apparently, hose the bees off.

The bees seem never to have been a threat to get into the cabin … but they apparently could have been a threat to the plane’s airworthiness.

The plane was about to depart from Mangalore, and if I have learned anything from my three years in the Gulf, it is that nearly anything can happen in India. And probably already has. Up to and including swarming insects building a nest on a wing tip.

Anyway, sort of nightmarish, to imagine. Bees on a/the Plane.