Pilot turns back after snake pops out of dashboard

AP

Canberra, 06 April 2012: An Australian pilot said he was forced to make a harrowing landing reminiscent of a Hollywood thriller after a snake popped out from behind his dashboard and slithered across his leg during a solo cargo flight.

 

Braden Blennerhassett — unsure whether the snake was venomous — said on Thursday his heart raced as he tried to keep his hands still while maneuvering the plane back to the northern city of Darwin. The snake popped its head out from behind the instrument panel several times, Blennerhassett said, and then the ordeal worsened when the animal crawled across his leg during the approach to the airport.

 

“I’ve seen it on a movie once, but never in an airplane,” Blennerhassett told Australian Broadcasting Corp, referring to the 2006 movie “Snakes on a Plane”, in which deadly snakes are deliberately released in an airliner as part of a murder plot.

 

The 26-year-old Air Frontier pilot was alone in a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron G58 and had just left Darwin airport on a cargo run to a remote Outback Aboriginal settlement when he saw the snake on Tuesday.

 

Blennerhassett admits he was shaken, telling Nine Network television that his blood pressure and hear rate were “a bit elevated.”

 

“As the plane was landing, the snake was crawling down my leg, which was frightening,” he said.

 

Once the plane had landed, a firefighter spotted the snake but authorities were not immediately able to catch it, Air Frontier official Michael Ellen said. A trap baited with a mouse failed to catch the snake by Thursday, and the plane remained grounded.