An AirAsia flight in Malaysia was re-routed after a snake was discovered on the airplane, the airline has confirmed.
The home flight was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau final Thursday when a number of passengers reportedly realised there was a snake on board the plane.
A social media consumer shared a picture of a snake slithering by way of the airplane's lighting fixtures.
"It is a very uncommon incident which may happen on any plane infrequently," mentioned Liong Tien Ling, AirAsia's chief security officer, in an announcement emailed to CNN Journey.
As soon as the pilot acquired phrase of the sudden additional passenger, the airplane was re-routed to the town of Kuching.
There, the airplane was fumigated and, presumably, the snake stowaway was eliminated.
"The Captain took the suitable motion and the flight safely departed for Tawau as quickly as doable," mentioned Mr Ling within the assertion.
Incidents of snakes on board airplanes are certainly uncommon however do occur.
In 2012, a passenger - who occurred to be the proprietor of a reptile store - smuggled a cobra in his carry-on baggage on an Egyptair flight and was discovered when the snake acquired free and bit his hand.
Snakes additionally wind up on planes unintentionally.
That's what occurred to a Scottish girl who was coming back from a vacation in Australia in 2016 when she found mid-air that a stowaway python had taken up residence in her shoe.
Upon the airplane's arrival in Glasgow, the native chapter of the Society for the Safety of Animals (SPCA) retrieved the snake and put it into quarantine.
Fortunately, the reptile was recognized as a noticed python, which isn't venomous.
The world's deadliest, most terrifying, snakes
Incidents like these typically pattern on-line because of the residual reputation of the cult hit 2006 film Snakes on a Aircraft, which starred Samuel L. Jackson as an FBI agent battling a bunch of snakes that have been - nicely, .