Passengers Watched In Amazement As Snake Clings To Plane On Air

It was not quite a "Snakes on a Plane" scenario, but
passengers on a Qantas jet watched in amazement
as a three-metre python clung to the outside of
their aircraft during a flight.
The Australian carrier said the flight from the
Queensland city of Cairns to Port Moresby, capital
of the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea,
took off early Thursday morning with the
unregistered passenger tucked into its wing.
"The snake was seen by passengers once (the
plane) reached cruising altitude," a Qantas
spokesman told AFP.
"It was still on the aircraft when it arrived in Port
Moresby but it had died by that stage."
Once they spotted it on the wing, passengers
watched as the reptile engaged in a life-and-death
struggle to maintain its grip on the plane despite
the winds and chilly altitude temperatures for the
two-hour journey. The hard fighting snake made it
to the aircraft's destination, and didn't fall off on
the way, but it was dead already.
Passenger Robert Weber told Fairfax Media Friday
that while people at the front of the plane were
unaware of the python, those at the back were "all
totally focused on the snake and how it might have
got onto the aircraft".
"There was no panic. At no time did anyone stop to
consider that there might be others on board,"
Weber said.
He added that the snake had been nestled neatly
at first, but once the wind caught the end of its tail,
it was "pulling him straight out" and from then on
it became a hopeless "life-and-death struggle".
"I felt quite sad for it, really," he said.
An expert said the snake was probably a scrub
python, Australia's longest snake and one common
in northern Queensland.
Qantas said it had never heard of anything similar
happening before, adding that there was no way
the reptile could have accessed the cabin.
Unlike the 2006 "Snakes on a Plane" movie
starring Samuel L. Jackson, this reptile did not
affect the flight. [AFP]
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN