World News

Snake on plane: Cobra in cockpit forces South African pilot make emergency landing

A South African pilot, Rudolph Erasmus was forced to make an emergency landing after a 5ft deadly cobra moved past his side and curled up under his seat.

Erasmus was flying four passengers in a private plane at 11,000ft when he said he felt a “cold sensation” on his hip. Thinking that his water bottle might have been leaking, Erasmus looked down instead at the sight of a highly venomous snake disappearing underneath him.

“To be truly honest, it’s as if my brain did not register what was going on. It was a moment of awe.

“I felt this cool sensation, sort of, crawling up my shirt,” he said, thinking he may not have closed the bottle properly and water might have been dripping down his shirt.

“As I turned to the left and looked down I saw the cobra receding its head backwards underneath the seat,” he told the BBC.

He then made an emergency landing on his flight from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. The private plane, a Beechcraft Baron 58, was carrying four passengers, as well as the snake. The plane made an emergency landing in the city of Welkom.

According to research, a bite from a Cape cobra is lethal and can kill someone in just 30 minutes, so not wanting to cause panic, Erasmus says he thought carefully before calmly telling those on board that there was an extra unwanted voyager.

“I was so scared the snake might have gone to the back and cause mass panic,” he said.

In the end, he decided the tell them. “I did inform the passengers ‘Listen the snake is inside the aircraft, it’s underneath my seat, so let’s try and get down to the ground as soon as we can.

On the reaction of the passengers, Erasmus described it as a moment of absolute silence: “You could hear a needle drop and I think everyone froze for a moment or two.

“Pilots are trained for lots of scenarios, but certainly not for dealing with snakes in the cockpit,” he said.

However, the presence of the snake, although shocking, was not a total surprise. Two people working at Worcester flying club where the plane first took off, said they had earlier spotted a reptile taking refuge under the aircraft. They tried to “grab” it, but without success.

Erasmus said he tried to find the snake before boarding the aircraft with his passengers, but “unfortunately it was not there, so we all then safely assumed that it must have crawled out overnight or earlier that morning, which was on Monday”.

The slithering passenger is still missing, as engineers who then stripped the plane are yet to find it.

Erasmus has been hailed a hero, with South African civil aviation commissioner, Poppy Khosa, praising his “great airmanship indeed which saved all lives on board,” according to the News24 site.

But the modest pilot says he doesn’t feel like he’s special for what he did: “I think that’s a bit blown up if I can be direct,” he said. “It’s also my passengers that remained calm as well.”

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