A runaway rat was spotted darting across the ceiling lights near the overhead bins of a JetBlue flight, setting off a merry mix of righteous disgust and mild panic inside the cabin.
This close encounter of the rodent kind was recorded at the tail end of a five-hour flight from Los Angeles to New York on June 12 by Brittney Brimway, a passenger.
She said in an Instagram post that has racked up more than a million views that it all began with an unusual wake-up call.
Brimway said she was asleep with her 10-month-old baby when her 13-year-old son nudged her awake.
“He said there was a rat in the lights,” she recalled.
She said she thought it was the sort of thing a teenager says after too much screen time. But she glanced upwards, and there it was: a rat on a plane.
A video recorded by her son shows what appears to be a large rodent darting across the blue-lit ceiling panels near the overhead bins while passengers looked on.
Brimway said the sight left her shocked, disgusted and concerned, particularly because she was travelling with young children.
“You can’t make this up,” she wrote, noting that the encounter occurred in JetBlue’s Mint premium cabin.
The US airline responded publicly and later informed her that she would be refunded for the cost of the flight.
JetBlue said incidents involving rodents are rare, and that maintaining a safe and comfortable environment remains a priority.
The carrier said the aircraft was removed from service for inspection and cleaning.
The rat’s ultimate destination, though, remains unknown. Whether it had a boarding pass, airline elite status or simply strong feelings about New York was not immediately clear.
As it turns out, this is not the first rodent-related incident on a plane.
In 2025, passengers aboard a KLM flight to the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba reported seeing a rat crawling through the cabin before it reportedly ventured into overhead bins and storage compartments.
While a few on Brimway’s Instagram post commented that a rodent can be a serious flight risk as it may chew on vital wiring that keeps a plane in the air, most just wrote it off as one of those unexpected inconveniences that come with modern air travel.
One described it as “the most New York thing ever”.
The general consensus seemed to be that a rat is still a better companion than a drunk, loud, rowdy, aggressive passenger on seat 54C.
