In addition to ensuring your tray tables are raised and your electronic devices are turned off, perhaps one more instruction needs to be added to passenger flight announcements: Ensure all cats are safely stowed before liftoff.
Note to faint-hearted readers: This all turns out just fine.
There probably weren't any preflight instructions issued on this open-cockpit glider ride in Kourou, French Guiana. As we can see in the video, the light aircraft seats just two and is essentially open to all the elements. But when the pair of flyers take off, they have no idea they've been joined by a stowaway.
Kitty, who was probably just taking a nap in the wing when the plane took off, makes a surprise appearance at around the 47-second mark, but it takes another ten seconds or so before the pilot notices her. Wide-eyed, he and his passenger grin nervously — the poor cat doesn't even have a seat belt! — before returning to the ground to land safely.
The video's description indicates that this all happened at an aviation school, and the poster writes in the YouTube comments that the cat is just fine — and "still our mascot."
And probably down to eight lives now!