Thousands of bees staged an extraordinary attack on a passenger plane at a Moscow airport.

They swarmed an Airbus-319 as it was about to start taxiing ahead of taking off from Vnukovo Airport bound for St Petersburg.

The bees flew from under a wing, said eye witnesses reporting the incident. Some attached themselves to the wing, while others covered windows of the Rossiya airline's plane.

Clinging on for dear life: The bees swarmed onto the fuselage but didn't get inside the plane

Two ambulances were called to the plane amid fears that the bees might get inside the cabin. Stings from bees can cause anaphylactic shock in people with an allergy, and honey bee stings release a pheromone which prompts other nearby bees to attack.

Airport staff then 'efficiently and quickly' removed the from the plane's fuselage. Although reports do not explain how this was done, the usual method is to smoke the bees out and vacuum them up.

The flight was delayed by slightly under an hour.

It's not the first time a swarm of bees have caused problems for air passengers.

Bee warned: An increasing number of swarms of bees are interrupting flights

In April 2015 a massive swarm of bees managed to ground a Minnesota-bound Allegiant airlines flight after first clouding the windshields and then getting sucked into the plane's engines.

Last October a swarm of angry bees attacked a drone as it flew over Miami Beach in Florida.

The drone quadcopter, fitted with a camera, had been launched to capture a stunning aerial view of the coastal resort city, but as soon as it soared above the surrounding trees and homes, it was attacked by a large swarm of male honey bees.

The plane in Moscow was soon cleared of the bees and the flight was only delayed by one hour

Africanized honey bees, or so called 'killer bees', are increasingly causing havoc at airports, particularly across the Southwest of America.

The insects exhibit certain behavioral traits that make them a threat to people and other animals, including excessive defensiveness and swarming.

The aggressive bees, which entered the U.S. from Mexico in the early 1990s, like to travel across open spaces and have to stop to rest whenever the queen gets tired.