The European Air Traffic Control Commissioner today confirmed that for the last six months an undisclosed european country has been employing a chimpanzee on routine day to day air traffic control operations. 'Chips', an eight year old adult ape was bred in captivity and has been part of an advanced air traffic control research programme since 2006.

Chips has been trained on state of the art computer software programmes to keep aircraft apart by pressing different coloured buttons depending on how close they get to one another. European Air Traffic Control Commissioner Herr Prof Otto Von Grytviken, aged 107, denied any risk to flight safety saying that Chips has only come close to a mid air collision on only two occasions and since the commencement of appropriate aversion therapy, and the use of mittens, he has managed to overcome his initial behavioural problems.

Of course this isn't the first time apes have been involved in the aerospace industry. 'Ham' became the first ape in outer space when he blasted off on board a Mercury rocket MR-2 in 1961 as part of the American Space Programme.

Chips was not available for comment.

In the early hours of this morning the pilot and co-pilot of budget cargo air line Flloop Air were stunned to find a cow wander onto the flight deck. The specially converted Airbus 380 was flying at 35,000 feet 5 hours into their mid atlantic flight to the USA.

'I couldn't believe my eyes' Said Captain Winston Barrington, a veteran of over 25 years in aviation. 'In all my time flying live animals back and forth across the Atlantic I have never had an episode where a cow or other animal has managed to undo their seat belt and get anywhere near the flight deck'.

Flloop Air, the first budget animal cargo airline to fly the Airbus 380, was quick to reassure the general public that at no time was the aircraft in any danger. The cow was quickly taken back to its seat and remained there for the rest of the flight.

The animal welfare group PDF (Pigs don't fly) in a statement reiterated their campaign message that the only safe way to travel was by rail or road (and certainly not motorbike) and that a full enquiry needs to be undertaken by the FAA.

This isn't the first aviation related cow story to hit the news. See article below.

'Japanese Trawler sunk by Cow' 'It is reported that the dazed crew of a Japanese trawler were plucked from the Sea off Japan clinging to the wreckage of their sunken ship. Their rescue, however, was followed by the imprisonment of the boat's crew once authorities started to question the sailors on their ship's loss. They all maintained that a cow, falling out of a clear sky, had struck the trawler amidships, shattering its hull and sinking the vessel within minutes.

No one believed them, suspecting them of drunkenness or worse and so they remained in prison for several weeks, until the Russian Air Force reluctantly informed Japanese authorities that the crew of one of its cargo planes had apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a Siberian airfield, forced the cow into the plane's hold and rather rashly then taken off for home. Unprepared for live cargo, the Russian crew was ill-equipped to manage a now rampaging and fed-up cow within its hold. To save the aircraft and themselves, they pushed the animal out of the cargo hold as they crossed the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 30,000 feet'. From Wikipedia