Frankfurt Airport in Germany saw a short-lived hit to its operations yesterday when a power cut hit its operations overnight after a dormouse short-circuited an electricity substation. 

While operating company Fraport said the power cut’s impact on flights was limited due to its proximity to the end of the day’s operations at the airport, the issues partially continued into the morning with at least 11 flights cancelled.

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According to energy company Syna, the incident occurred at 10:45pm on Monday night (6 August) but power was restored by 3:20am the next day, despite the Frankfurt airport fire service being called to address smoke at the substation. 

Local media reported that the dormouse was found dead next to the partially chewed wire at the substation, one of six powering the airport. 

The issue is a relatively minor one for airports and Fraport told media that though it had pest controllers in constant deployment around its grounds, it was impossible to completely eliminate incidents like the latest power cut. 

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The incident is just the latest unlikely event to hit Frankfurt’s operations, coming less than a month after more than 100 flights were cancelled when climate protestors blocked air traffic by glueing themselves to the airport’s runways.

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