The pilot of a private plane was forced to make an emergency landing in South Africa, after detecting in the cabin the presence of what was later found to be one of the most poisonous snakes on the African continent.
Rudolph Erasmus was piloting a plane with four passengers when he felt what he describes as “a cold sensation through” his shirt. Assuming it was water from his bottle that he had spilled, Erasmus only realized after the snake had already slithered under his seat.
“As I turned to the left and looked down, I saw the snake […] go under the seat,” he said.
A bite from that species of snake, what Erasmus now believes was a Cape coral snake or aspidelaps lubricus – can kill a person in just 30 minutes, according to the BBC.
The next moment, Erasmus said, he felt as if his “brain hadn’t processed what was happening.” So as not to cause panic among the passengers and crew aboard a Beechcraft Baron 58 twin-engine aircraft, the pilot merely announced the presence of an “unwanted crew member.”
However, he later confessed that it was a snake. “The snake is under my seat. It’s inside the cabin, so we’ll have to land as soon as possible,” he explained, adding: “Fortunately, everyone remained calm.”
The pilot radioed the emergency and was quickly cleared to land at the nearest airport (Welkom), which is located more than 2,000 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg, GoldFM, a local radio station, said.
Erasmus has already received praise from the South African Civil Aviation Commissioner, Poppy Khoza, who congratulated him on his “great aerial skill, which saved all lives on board,” according to the online newspaper News24.
The pilot thanked him, but devalued his work and attributes the success of the feat to his “passengers who kept calm.”
The snake had already been detected by two workers, before the plane took off, who had tried to “grab” it, but without success.
Erasmus explained that they had tried to find the snake before boarding with the passengers, but they had not been able to, so they assumed that it had escaped.
However, the snake was not found.
Source: TSF
