Lufthansa From Christmas Island, joined May 1999, 3074 posts, RR: 10 Reply 5, posted (4 months 1 week 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 23477 times:
oh god this bloody country is full of the god damn things. honestly don't feel for the snake, feel for the pax... if this jammed a flight surface things could have ended very differently. luckily all landed in one piece bar the stow away.
TWA902fly From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 3048 posts, RR: 4 Reply 6, posted (4 months 1 week 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 23403 times:
Quoting Lufthansa (Reply 5): oh god this bloody country is full of the god damn things. honestly don't feel for the snake, feel for the pax... if this jammed a flight surface things could have ended very differently. luckily all landed in one piece bar the stow away.
Maybe if it chewed up a few hydraulic lines and gas lines the night before...
life wasn't worth the balance, or the crumpled paper it was written on
hawaii12 From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 101 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (4 months 1 week 5 days 1 hour ago) and read 21243 times:
snakes do not chew. they're very protective of their fangs... one or two strikes and they're put away. and the other teeth snakes do have are used to hold their food in place as it moves forward to begin the swallowing process.
higherflyer From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 128 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (4 months 1 week 5 days 1 hour ago) and read 19761 times:
Quoting web500sjc (Reply 10): So if the snake got the controls jammed, would it still be pilot error?
Yes!
Did the snake have a passport? Or did it get deported back to point of origin at QF's expense?
dergay From Ireland, joined Dec 2006, 23 posts, RR: 0 Reply 15, posted (4 months 1 week 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 17803 times:
Quoting hawaii12 (Reply 9): snakes do not chew. they're very protective of their fangs... one or two strikes and they're put away. and the other teeth snakes do have are used to hold their food in place as it moves forward to begin the swallowing process.
Thank You!
Flown on A300,A310,A318,A319,A320,A321,A330,B707,B720,B727,B737,B747,B757,B767,L382,L1011,C5,DC-3,DC8,
vanguard737 From United States of America, joined Aug 2001, 674 posts, RR: 5 Reply 16, posted (4 months 1 week 4 days 21 hours ago) and read 15036 times:
Along with centipedes, earwigs, and wasps, I absolutely hate snakes!
But I can't help but feel sorry for this little guy. That was a slow, painful death.
Lufthansa From Christmas Island, joined May 1999, 3074 posts, RR: 10 Reply 17, posted (4 months 1 week 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 14784 times:
you know i was thinking about this more. Cairn's apron is concrete and asphalt, depending on where the aircraft was parked. Assuming it when it during an overnight stop, it still would have taken the snake quite a while to cross this kind of surface, as there isn't much ability for it to gain traction on it. during the day people would have noticed. but during the night, well possibly not. The tarmac would have been warm, but it probably took the snake forever to leave whatever nearby garden it came out of and to get up inside the aircraft.... unless... a passenger brought it there!
FlexJetOKC From United States of America, joined Feb 2011, 47 posts, RR: 0 Reply 23, posted (4 months 1 week 4 days 18 hours ago) and read 12184 times:
Poor snake! I bet that was a chilly ride!
[Edited 2013-01-10 16:54:16]
Above the planet on a wing and a prayer, my grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air...
a36001 From Australia, joined Sep 2012, 84 posts, RR: 0 Reply 24, posted (4 months 1 week 4 days 17 hours ago) and read 11640 times:
OMG the post's on the news.com.au site are banging on about how dare the crew let that animal die, if it was a Koala blabla!!! Who cares about some snake, that thing would try and kill you first chance it got! The only good snake is a dead snake as far as I am concerned! (I have lost two pets to a red belly black snake). In this country we have so many of nature's finest both good and bad, and one less of the bad ones isn't going to get me upset. Glad the aircraft survived!
25 mesaflyguy: THANK YOU!! I wasn't sure if I'd offend anybody by posting that myself, but that was the very first thing that came to mind for me. I do feel bad for
26 qantas717: So lets speculate, what killed the snake? More than likely a combination of things including loss of blood, extreme cold and hypoxia and well as proba
27 GSPflyer: The real question here should be... How did it get up there? Maybe climbed up the landing gear? I can't think of anything else.
28 Bureaucromancer: My question about this is how big a screwup is this in terms of preflight? It seems like this thing should have been pretty noticeable. Are we (or sho
29 aloges: How so? IIRC, the article said that a passenger noticed "a head popping out of the wing" (or so) during the flight. That means the snake was tucked a
30 Superfly: Stupid animal rights activist types mostl likely. Qantas might get hit with a lawsuit from PETA. I agree.
31 steex: I'm not so sure I agree with this. Asphalt and concrete have ample texture on which to gain traction, a snake could move fairly easily. If anything,
33 par13del: Yes, the captain is responsible for ensuring that all pax are properly seated before takeoff, and since they departed with the proper paperwork compl
34 skywaymanaz: That had me confused because reading the article I wasn't sure if the pilots continued to their destination, diverted to the nearest airport or retur
35 Superfly: Why does the article say python? This snake doesn't look fat enough to be a python. Are there any photos of the snake after it had been pulled out?
36 flyingturtle: Well, I do not know, but: "Rick Shine, a snake expert at the University of Sydney, said the specimen was a ''very uncomfortable'' scrub python, the l
37 HAWK21M: Exactly.....A jammed control surface would have been serious.Was the Aircraft parked for a long duration to permit the snake to get up to the area.
38 steex: Unlike other species of python, scrub pythons are generally fairly slender snakes unless they've eaten very recently. What you see in the photos look
39 Viscount724: It was parked overnight. The flight left CNS at 0615.
40 flyingturtle: And aircraft aren't able to do a no-flaps-landing, are they? Well, it presumably took the snake only a night to crawl into the wing. Many and many A/
41 HAWK21M: The TE flap may not have been the only jammed component....
42 flyingturtle: You mean, more snakes on the motherflapping plane??? David
43 freakyrat: This was a Q400 folks and I'm sure it is more than capable of a no flap landing especially with those big props put in reverse pitch after landing.
44 HAWK21M: Any idea where this Aircraft was long halted that wnabled the snake access to the flap track. So procedures can be put in place to avoid similiar occu
45 Viscount724: See Reply 39. The aircraft was parked overnight at CNS and departed at 0615.
46 Geezer: There are many different species of pythons........many of them are not big and fat.......some are long and slender; If you have ever watched a snake
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