Flying High: Snakes on a Plane? Not Likely

June 7, 2006 — -- Some of us in the aviation business couldn't help but wonder last week whether the story about a private pilot landing in Ohio while hanging onto a stowaway snake wasn't some sort of clever promotional stunt for the movie, "Snakes on a Plane."

According to 62-year-old pilot Monty Coles, the emergent critter -- a 4½-foot nonpoisonous blacksnake -- was the real deal, an unwelcome passenger who had decided to slither out from the plane's instrument panel in flight.

If you didn't hear the details, Coles grabbed the snake behind its head with his right hand while successfully landing his single engine Piper Cherokee with his left hand. Once safely on the ground, like any good airline crew member, he let the passenger go free -- a "catch-and-release" tradition every airline advertising executive knows well.

Apparently, the incident had nothing to do with the forthcoming Hollywood disaster flick that has garnered a huge cult following through the Internet. While good for campy movie fun, the reality is that commercial airliners are rarely endangered by animal invasions.

However, Coles' serpentine story instantly called to mind the sad tale of a young Air Force student pilot decades ago who lost his flight instructor when their T-37 side-by-side jet trainer collided with a hawk near Reese Air Force Base outside Lubbock, Texas.

Apparently, before being rudely run over by the jet trainer and projected through the cockpit's bubble canopy at more than 200 knots, killing the instructor, the hawk had been airlifting his lunch -- a very upset Texas diamondback rattlesnake.

The collision left the the snake -- stunned and damaged, but still alive -- writhing around the floor of the damaged T-37 cockpit trying to bite something. That left the student pilot to attempt to, 1., put out a small fire in the instrument panel; 2., deal with the lack of communications from the scream of the airflow around the exposed cockpit; 3., stomp said poisonous snake to death; and, 4., safely land the airplane alone. The young second lieutenant accomplished all four tasks successfully.