Real Snake on a Plane Attack Forced Emergency Landing in Egypt
A snake was found on a commercial flight which forced pilots to make an emergency landing.
An EgyptAir flight from Cairo to Kuwait had an unexpected surprise when a passenger was bit by a snake.
The reptile was smuggled on board by Akram Abdul Latif, a 48-year-old reptile shop owner from Jordan. Latif apparently had put the snake in his carry-on luggage to bypass security.
Passengers became terrified after they saw the snake. Latif was trying to keep the snake calm in his bag when it bit his finger and started to crawl under the seats of other passengers.
When the pilots were alerted that one of the 90 passengers had been bit, they decided to land at a nearby airport to get the victim treated, according to CNN.
The snake turned out to be an Egyptian cobra which has deadly venom that can kill a full-grown man in less than 15 minutes. The venom causes paralysis and nerve tissue damage with death resulting from a shutdown on the victim's respiratory system.
The bit passenger was taken to a nearby hospital after the plane landed in the Red Sea resort town Al Ghardaqa's Hurgada airport, some 300 miles south of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. However, he refused treatment saying that it was only a "superficial injury," according to the Jordan Times.
The Egyptian cobra was confiscated by authorities when they arrived at Hurgada airport.
This is the latest occurrence of a deadly creature attacking a passenger on a flight.
Two weeks ago a stowaway scorpion was found on a flight from San Jose, Costa Rica to Madrid, Spain after it bit a female passenger, according to the Daily Mail. The female Swiss passenger was rushed to the hospital in Madrid after the transatlantic flight. The woman reportedly was able to continue traveling after some minor treatment.
