A South African pilot had to make an emergency landing when he found himself in a situation straight out of the movies -- a venomous snake was under his seat.
Pilot Rudolf Erasmus was flying a private
plane carrying four passengers from Bloemfontein to Pretoria flight when he
found himself in a situation reminiscent of the film Snakes on a Plane.
Erasmus said he initially thought the cold
sensation he felt through his shirt was his water bottle leaking.
"As I turned to my left and looked down,
I could see the head of the snake receding back underneath my seat,"
Erasmus told NPR. "At which point there was a moment of stunned silence,
to be brutally honest."
Erasmus said it took him a few moments to
register that he had just seen a highly venomous cape cobra.
The pilot quickly made arrangements for an
emergency landing at the closest airport, in Welkom, and informed his
passengers of the slithering stowaway.
"You could hear a needle drop and I
think everyone froze for a moment or two," he told the BBC.
Unlike the 2006 film, the plane landed with
no one being bitten by the cobra. The passengers and crew members disembarked
safely.
Erasmus said the snake was still curled up
under his chair when he disembarked, but the reptile had disappeared by the
time a professional snake catcher arrived on the scene.
Workers at Worcester flying club, where the
plane had originally departed, revealed they had earlier seen a snake
slithering under the aircraft, but it vanished before they could grab it.
Poppy Khosa, South Africa's civil aviation
commissioner, hailed Erasmus as a hero.
"Oh my goodness this could have been
disastrous. Great airmanship indeed, which saved all lives on board. Such an
amazing story and great handling of the situation by the pilot. Bravo to great
airmanship," Khoza told News24.
UPI
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