Snake On Plane Forces Pilot To Make Emergency Landing In Australia

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If ever a pilot needed nerves of steel it was the moment when a snake poked its head out from a gap in the instrument panel.
It happened to Braden Blennerhassett 20 minutes after he took off from Darwin airport in his twin-engined plane - and he admits it's not an experience he wants to go through again.
Braden tried to remain calm as he decided to call the control tower back in Darwin and tell them that he would be making a swift return.
But there was an added problem - the snake had slithered out of a gap near the radio's control button and engaging in a conversation with the control tower could have resulted in the snake sinking its fangs into Braden's hand.
Even so, he managed to hold a sporadic conversation with Darwin, although his initial call was treated as a joke.
After successfully landing without managing to get bitten, Mr Braden recalled that 'out of the corner of my eye, I see a little bit of movement there.'
He told the Northern Territory News today: 'Lo and behind, in between the instrument panel and the dashboard a stowaway came on board and it took me a while to register that it was actually a snake.
'I turned the plane around and got it headed back towards Darwin.
'I said "Look, you're not going to believe this. I've got snakes on a plane."'

Sounds like a real Indiana Jones moment, although I must say I hate when the media portrays snakes as vicious "Sinking its fangs" without saying if the snake was venomous much less if it had 'fangs' to sink anywhere. This my journalistic side looking at this.