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Virgin Australia flight VA1482 from Broome International Airport (BME) to Perth Airport (PER) had an interesting stowaway this week when a Stimson’s python was found on the aircraft before takeoff. A reality TV personality from Disney’s Shipwreck Hunters Australia handled the situation and removed the reptile from the aircraft.
Stimson’s pythons are non-venomous and harmless, but also not something that passengers want slithering around at 35,000 feet. Andre Rerekura saw passengers squirming, walked over, and grabbed the snake before handing it off to an airport employee to release. Stimson’s pythons are a common sight in northern Australia during the hotter summer months (which is now down under).
In a real-life encounter on board a Virgin Australia flight from Broome to Perth, the shipwreck-hunting adventure seeker remove a snake from the flight.
The slippery surprise was discovered before Virgin flight VA 1482 was scheduled to depart from Broome at 10.30am on Thursday,… pic.twitter.com/1zqrgJOaoW
— FL360aero (@fl360aero) November 21, 2024
Rerekura had never seen the 2006 movie, Snakes on a Plane, and had no idea that he was taking on the role of the Samuel L. Jackson character from the film. He commented on the situation:
They pretty much shut the whole plane down and everyone was going to get disembarked and sent off the plane which we weren’t that keen for because everyone wanted to go home. It was a little bit of a weird story to think it was true, to hear that there was a snake on the plane, so I don’t think a lot of people believed it. As soon as I saw it, I identified it pretty easily … so I knew it was safe [and] I knew it was just scared and super shy. So I just wanted to get it off real quick … it was super cute but some of the air hostesses were running the other way. I think everyone was relieved that they didn’t have to get off the plane and then a lot of people were happy that the snake was safe. The staff were awesome, they gave me a complimentary drink, I had a soda water.”
Passengers and flight crew cheered his handling of the creepy crawly and he was given a complimentary soft drink as his reward.
Anthony’s Take: The day was saved thanks to some quick thinking and a reality TV star that knew how to handle the harmless snake.
(Featured Image Credit: Ken Griffiths.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
