It was like a real-life “Snakes on Plane” scenario.
Serpents infiltrating an aircraft might seem like it’s relegated to a certain 2006 horror-comedy flop. However, a South African pilot was literally forced to make an emergency landing because a deadly snake was on his plane.
“We were cruising at 11,000 feet in the air when I felt something cold against my hip,” Rudolph Erasmus told the Lowvelder of the herpetological hijacking.
The freaked-out flyboy had been ferrying four passengers on a private flight from Worcester, South Africa to Mbombela on April 3.
They would soon realize, however, that they weren’t the only passengers on board. Erasmus told the BBC he knew something was wrong after feeling a “cool sensation, sort of, crawling up my shirt.”
Initially thinking it was leakage from his water bottle, the pilot quickly realized that was not the case after looking down and seeing “the cobra […] receding its head backwards underneath the seat.”
“To be truly honest, it’s as if my brain did not register what was going on,” the pilot said of his sighting the serpentine stowaway.
He recognized his scaly seatmate as a Cape Cobra, an aggressive South African-dwelling elapid that packs enough venom to kill nine humans.
The reptile’s provenance is yet unclear, however, two employees working at Worcester flying club where the plane departed from, said they had seen a reptile sheltering under the aircraft.
Unfortunately, their attempts to wrangle it were unsuccessful.
Erasmus initially refrained from announcing the interloper’s presence over the intercom for fear of causing mass hissteria.
“I kept quiet for minute or two, because I didn’t want the passengers to panic,” explained the steel-nerved airman. “I informed them a snake was under my seat in the cockpit and I needed to land the plane as soon as possible.”
Following his announcement, “you could hear a needle drop and I think everyone froze for a moment or two,” he told the BBC.
The scenario evoked a scene from the 2006 horror-comedy “Snakes on Plane,” in which — go figure — a bunch of venomous serpents wreak havoc at 30,000 feet.
Thankfully, in this case, both the passengers and the cobra remained “calm” while Erasmus to touch down at the nearest airport in Welkom.
The captain then let the passengers deplane first while he stayed behind to try and find the slithery straggler.
“I stood on the wing on the plane and moved the seat forward to try and spot the snake,” he described. “It was curled up under my seat. It was quite a big fellow.”
As of yet, the cobra remains at large; the engineers who stripped down the plane post-touchdown were reportedly unable to locate it.
Despite the snake’s MIA status, the South African aviation community has praised Erasmus for remaining cool under pressure.
“I must compliment Rudolf Erasmus for the way he handled the situation,” gushed Brian Emmenis, the official commentator for the Lowveld Airshow who was won multiple awards for aviation safety.
This isn’t instance of a snake on plane.
In an incident closer to home in October, United Airlines passengers were sent into a panic after spotting a snake as their plane pulled into Newark International Airport.
Thankfully this literal gate-crasher turned out to be a nonvenomous garter snake.