The shipwreck-hunting adventure seeker who ejected a slithery stowaway on a Broome to Perth flight says he had never heard of the Samuel L. Jackson movie Snakes on a Plane before Thursday.
A 10-centimetre snake caused chaos on Virgin Australia flight 1482 on Thursday morning – delaying take off by 20 minutes as cabin crew and passengers scrambled to find it.
Fortunately for them one of the stars of Disney’s worldwide hit Shipwreck Hunters Australia, Andre Rerekura, was on board and he deployed some quick reflexes to remove the wayward Stimpson Python.
Rerekura had just spent several days filming sea snakes near Scott Reef off the Kimberley coast and said he was a little dumbfounded when someone on the plan shouted they’d spotted a snake.
“A couple of lads were standing up, kind of concerned … people had their legs on the chairs scared of it,” he said.
“It was pretty small, so no one could find it any more and someone also said it could be a brown snake. So then it was like, ‘alright, we’ve got to get everyone off’.
Andre Rerekura (far right) is part of the Shipwreck Hunters Australia team.
“They were getting ready to get everyone off, and then another lady squealed behind us, and I peered over the chair and I noticed a little Stimson Python, which is super harmless.”
Rerekura said he wasn’t a snake wrangler but often went searching for reptiles near his home in Exmouth so he was confident when handling the python.
