Snake on a plane delays Australia flight as snake catcher summoned
MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian domestic flight was delayed for two hours after a stowaway snake was found in the plane's cargo hold, officials said on Wednesday.
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The snake was found on Tuesday as passengers were boarding Virgin Australia Flight VA337 at Melbourne Airport bound for Brisbane, according to snake catcher Mark Pelley.
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The snake turned out to be a harmless 60-centimetre green tree snake. But Pelly said he thought it could be venomous when he approached it in the darkened hold.
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'It wasn't until after I caught the snake that I realized that it wasn't venomous. Until that point, it looked very dangerous to me,' Pelley said.
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When Pelley entered the cargo hold, the snake was half hidden behind a panel and could have disappeared deeper into the plane.
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Pelley said he told an aircraft engineer and airline staff that they would have to evacuate the aircraft if the snake disappeared inside the plane.
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'I said to them if I don't get this in one shot, it's going to sneak through the panels and you're going to have to evacuate the plane, because at that stage I did not know what kind of snake it was,' Pelley said.
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'But thankfully, I got it on the first try and captured it,' Pelley added. 'If I didn't get it that first time, the engineers and I would be pulling apart a (Boeing) 737 looking for a snake still right now.'
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Pelley said he had taken 30 minutes to drive to the airport and was then delayed by security before he could reach the airliner.
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An airline official said the flight was delayed around two hours.
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Because the snake is native to the Brisbane region, Pelley suspects it came aboard inside a passenger's luggage and escaped during the two-hour flight from Brisbane to Melbourne.
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The snake, which is a protected species, has been given to a Melbourne veterinarian to find a home with a licensed snake keeper.
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