Snake on a Plane

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Snakes on a plane? You heard that right, and no, this isn’t a Samuel L Jackson movie. Unfortunately, it is a real plane with real passengers and one very real snake.


The reptile appeared on a flight in Mexico heading from Torreon to Mexico City and sufficiently freaked out the passengers. It seemed to appear from the ceiling, wriggling and squirming against the overhead luggage bins. Passengers seated in the area were able to quickly unbuckle themselves and scoot away from the reptile before it fell to the floor.

A passenger, Indalecio Medina, shot a video of the snake wriggling and squirming against the ceiling. Near the end of the video, you can see the snake hanging straight down ready to drop. I’m not sure how Medina remained so calm, but the footage is pretty incredible!

Flight attendants swooped in and were able to trap the creature with a number of blankets. Luckily the plane was close to the final destination of Mexico City, so the flight was given a priority landing clearance and touched down within 10 minutes of the incident.

Animal control immediately came aboard the plane to remove the snake as passengers retreated through the back exit. According to some sources, the snake is a venomous green viper, but according to the Aeromexico website, it was a non-venomous snake from Southwest Mexico.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Medina estimated that the snake was over 3 feet long, however a Twitter update from one of the Aeromexico flight attendants makes the snake look much smaller, however Medina said that passengers were able to remain calm. He said that “some people got up to see what kind of reptile it was, but nobody got carried away.” Nice job, passengers!

Aeromexico is working with local authorities and looking into how the snake stowed away on the plane to avoid any additional incidents.

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