Oz plane forced to land after snake popped out from dashboard

Melbourne, Apr 5 (ANI): An airline pilot in the Northern Territory, Australia was forced to turn around the plane after a snake appeared slithering from the dashboard.

Pilot Braden Blennerhassett, with Air Frontier, was flying freight to the remote town of Peppimenarti in the Northern Territory when he spotted the snake coming out of his dashboard.

Air Frontier director Geoffrey Hunt said Blennerhassett called air traffic controllers on Tuesday to alert them of the snake.

"He said, we've got a snake on board," News.com.au quoted Hunt as saying.

Hunt said that the pilot had trouble communicating with the control tower.

"The snake popped its head out near the transmit button that he needed to press to talk to the tower," Hunt said.

He was told to return to Darwin and a snake handler was organised to meet Blennerhassett, but the reptile was never found.

"We have got another chap here who is an aircraft engineer and a snake handler and he had a look and he couldn't find it," the airline's director said.

He said the plan now was to try to trap the snake, using a live mouse in a cage as bait.

"You put it into a box with a hole in it, and the snake goes into the box to get the mouse and it stays in there trying to get it," he added.

Until the snake was found, the aircraft remained grounded. (ANI)