Video: Cat Escapes Carrier, Commandeers Air Canada Cockpit!

(Ripples the Cat, seen here in custody after a failed attempt to cat-jack an Air Canada flight yesterday.)

Happy Friday, here's the story of Ripples the Cat, a freedom-lovin' feline who grounded an Air Canada flight for four hours yesterday after he bolted from his carrier and stormed the cockpit. Ripples's owner, Debbie Harris, tells the Associated Press the trouble started after she went through security and someone didn't properly close the carrier after taking Ripples out for inspection. Once inside the plane's cabin, Ripples made his move:

At first it appeared that Ripples was just upgrading himself to first class, but he kept running until he got inside the cockpit. Security is apparently so lax on Air Canada that the pilot did not even notice the intruder under his feet. Then Ripples "nestled down" behind wiring in an inaccessible part of the cockpit. "It was actually within the wires of the plane," one passenger tells Sky News. "So it was pretty bizarre how it got there."

With the cockpit held hostage, passengers were cleared from the aircraft while workers struggled to coax Ripples out. (Earlier reports that Ripples demanded a lifetime supply of Fancy Feast and a one way flight to the Caboodle Ranch have NOT been confirmed.) Finally, after four tense hours, Ripples was taken into custody and returned to Harris, and the flight got on its way. But something tells us we haven't heard the last of Ripples, whose dream of flying was presaged many years ago by his ancestor Toonces, the Driving Cat: