For South African pilot Rudolph Erasmus, the trip was routine until he spotted an unexpected passenger at 11,000 feet.
A cobra, not a person, slithered out from under his chair.
After the event, he said, “To be genuinely honest, it’s as if my brain did not register what was going on.”
He continued, “It was a moment of wonder,” explaining that at first, he attributed the cold sensation on his back to his water bottle.
He said, “I felt this cool sensation, sort of creeping up my shirt,” suggesting that water may have been pouring down his shirt because the bottle hadn’t been closed properly.
“When I swiveled to the left and peered under the seat, I saw the cobra’s head disappear rearward.”
He was on his route from Bloemfontein to Pretoria when he was forced to make an emergency landing. A total of five people, including the snake, were aboard the private Beechcraft Baron 58.
Mr. Erasmus says he considered his options thoroughly before calmly informing the other passengers that there was an undesired extra passenger on board because a bite from a Cape cobra is fatal and may kill someone in just 30 minutes.
Also, “the snake might have gone to the back and caused mass panic,” he feared.
Venom antidotes and an overnight hospital stay are typical responses to a snake bite.
Finally, he made up his mind to inform them. “Listen the snake is inside the aircraft, it’s underneath my seat, so let’s try and get down to the ground as quickly as we can,” I told the other passengers.
How did the travelers take it? You could hear a needle drop,” Mr. Erasmus said, “and I think everyone froze for a moment or two.”
He said pilots are prepared for many things, but not for dealing with snakes in the cockpit and that he believes that fear would have made the situation worse.
Welkom was the location of the plane’s emergency landing.
Although surprising, the appearance of the snake was not entirely unexpected. Two workers at the Worcester flying club, from which the jet first took off, reported seeing a lizard seek shelter under the plane before it took off. That was a futile attempt to “grab” it.
Mr. Erasmus claimed he looked for the snake before boarding the plane with his passengers, but “sadly it was not there. So we all then comfortably thought that it must have crept out overnight or earlier that morning
Engineers who stripped the jet have not yet located the missing crawling passenger.
According to News24, South African civil aviation commissioner Poppy Khosa lauded Mr. Erasmus as a hero for his “excellent airmanship indeed which saved all lives on board.”
But the unassuming pilot says he doesn’t feel like he’s exceptional for what he did. “I believe that’s a bit blown up if I can be direct.” “My passengers, too, have kept their cool throughout.”
