An angry snake coiled around the pilot as he flew at an altitude of 3,000 metres

South African Rudolf Erasmus did not understand what exactly was happening when he felt something wonderful on his body. Only when he turned to the side did he see a snake writhing on the bench next to him, which had probably crawled through before him. The only problem was that all this happened at an altitude of about three thousand meters, because Erasmus was flying a small Beechcraft Baron between Bloemfontein and Pretoria with four other passengers on board.

The snake was a Cape cobra, a venomous snake whose bite can kill if you don’t have antiserum on hand.

Erasmus was afraid that panic would immediately break out if one of his passengers saw the animal. He finally decides to tell them, and it isn’t long before he tells them what no airline passenger would want: that there was a venomous snake on the plane and that he was trying to get off the plane as quickly as possible.

According to Erasmus, at that moment there was deathly silence on the plane. The plane managed to land near the city of Welkom, about 150 kilometers from take-off.

The pilot told the press that during takeoff, while still on the ground, they saw a snake hiding under the plane. They tried to catch him, but failed. But since they saw no sign of him, they assumed he had been fired. Even after landing, they searched to no avail, even though the plane fell apart.