Real Life ‘Snakes on a Plane’ Freak 370 Qantas Airline Jet Passengers

Good thing Qantas Airways staff discovered the 20-centimeter (8-inch) snake way even before passengers boarded its plane bound for Tokyo. Otherwise it would have been chaos equivalent to the 2006 American action thriller film 'Snakes on a Plane.' Imagine combining aerophobia, the fear of flying, and ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes.

The Mandarin Rat snake, a nonvenomous colubrid snake endemic to Asia, was found in the passenger cabin near the door late on Sunday at the Sydney International Airport.

Officials from the airline as well as from the Australian Agriculture Department remain uncertain as to how the snake writhed its way into the aircraft. However, they surmised it may have come from Singapore, where the jet had been in the days prior.

"The Department of Agriculture is looking into how the snake came to be on the plane, but isn't able to speculate at this time," it said in a statement.

The Qantas Boeing 747 airliner, since arriving in Sydney from Singapore on Saturday, was just on an airport tarmac.

The Australian Agriculture Department initially quarantined the reptile and then later killed it because it could be carrying diseases not native to Australia.

"Exotic reptiles of this kind can harbor pests and diseases not present in Australia," the Australian Agriculture Department said in a statement.

The 370 affected Qantas Airline passengers were accommodated in hotels overnight. They all left Sydney on Monday morning on a replacement plane.

This is not the first time that Qantas got embroiled with a flying snake passenger.

Video Source: Youtube/ hi5viralnews2