Deadly cobra slithers up pilot's shirt forcing him into emergency landing

05 April 2023 , 21:55

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Snake catcher, Johan de Klerk looking for the highly venomous Cape cobra in the Beechcraft that had to make an emergency landing at the Welkom airport on Monday (Image: news24)

A deadly snake forced a plane to make an emergency landing after slithering up the pilot's shirt.

Rudolph Erasmus was flying the private jet when he felt a "cold feeling" on his back - initially thinking the sensation was his water bottle.

However he soon realised he had a very unwelcome extra passenger while 11,000ft in the air.

The cool sensation turned out to be a Cape cobra, who had slithered onto the aircraft and right into the pilot's chair in the cockpit.

A single bite from a Cape cobra is lethal and can kill someone in 30 minutes.

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Mr Erasmus, from South Africa, knew he needed to act quickly to prevent the reptile making its way into the passenger seats of the Beechcraft Baron 58 and causing mass panic.

The Cape cobra, also called the yellow cobra, is a moderate-sized, highly venomous species of cobra inhabiting a wide variety of biomes across southern Africa (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Speaking about the nightmare ordeal, he told the BBC : "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.

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

After deliberating whether to tell his four passengers about the snake, the pilot knew he needed to be honest about why the aircraft would need to make an emergency landing.

A Cape Cobra on a South African beach (Janice Gianna Wagner)

He added: "I did inform the passengers, saying '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."

Mr Erasmus said the passengers were stunned into silence at the announcement.

The plane, travelling from Bloemfontein to Pretoria, made an emergency landing in the city of Welkom.

However, despite a thorough search, the stealthy passenger remains missing as engineers who then stripped the plane are yet to locate it.

Mr 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.

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Abigail O'Leary