Snake scare! Pilot finds deadly cobra in cockpit, makes emergency landing

A deadly cobra was found slithering in a plane's cockpit by South African pilot Rudolph Erasmus at 11,000ft in the air.

The scary co-passenger was slithering under the pilot's seat. "To be truly honest, it's as if my brain did not register what was going on. It was a moment of [...] awe," Erasmus said, adding that he initially mistook the cold feeling on his back as his water bottle.

"I felt this cool sensation, sort of, crawling up my shirt," he stated, believing that he did not close the bottle properly and hence, the water is dripping down his back.

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"As I turned to the left and looked down I saw the cobra [...] receding its head backwards underneath the seat,” he said.

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The pilot had to make an emergency landing. The flight had departed from Bloemfontein and was destined for Pretoria. The private plane, Beechcraft Baron 58, had four passengers onboard along with the snake.

Erasmus said that Cape cobra's single bite is lethal and can lead to the victim's death in 30 minutes, hence to avoid any panic, he carefully thought before telling passengers calmly about the unwanted co-passenger on board.

Erasmus was also "so scared the snake might have gone to the back and cause mass panic". Thinking thoroughly, he decided to inform the passengers.

"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',” he said to the passengers.

Describing about the scary announcement made to the passengers, Erasmus said that there was an absolute moment of silence: "You could hear a needle drop and I think everyone froze for a moment or two,” he said.

Pilots receive training for dealing with various scenarios, but certainly not for handling snakes in the cockpit, Erasmus said, adding that panicking would have made the situation much worse.

The plane's emergency landing was made in the city of Welkom. The presence of a snake, however, was not a total surprise. Two employees working at Worcester flying club, from where the plane first took off, said that they had seen the reptile enter the aircraft and had tried to "grab" it, but in vain.

Erasmus said that he had also tried finding the snake before boarding the aircraft along with the 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".

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The snake is again missing, as engineers who then checked the plane failed to find it. South African civil aviation commissioner Poppy Khosa hailed Erasmus as a hero, praising his "great airmanship indeed which saved all lives on board”.

However, the pilot refused to accept that he did anything special. "I think that's a bit blown up if I can be direct. It's also my passengers that remained calm as well,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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