The Hyderabad airport had a surprise visitor on Friday afternoon who managed to sneak past security and hide in the landing gear of a plane.
A 10-foot-long snake entered the landing gear compartment of an aircraft on the tarmac on Saturday morning, causing mild panic at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Shamshabad.
The incident led to panic among passengers at the airport and staff members.
According to a report by Telangana Today, staff immediately alerted the officials who called in the internal wildlife group of the airport to catch the snake.
The snake, suspected to be a rat-snake which is said to be venomless, would have entered the landing gear compartment and thereby into the aircraft, if it had not been spotted on time, an official said.
“There was nothing to worry. The airport has an internal wildlife department to deal with such cases. The situation was dealt with in a matter of 30 minutes,” another official told TNM.
Avinash, from Friends of Snakes Society, a Hyderabad based NGO that works to protect the reptiles. had earlier told TNM that snakes look for cooler places during summer, as it becomes hard for them to survive if the temperature crosses 38 degree Celsius.
According to reports, the snake was released into a nearby forest area.
The Shamshabad airport, around 30 kms from Hyderabad city, is located near reserve forest areas.
Hyderabad: 8 feet snake found at runway in Shamshabad Airport. After seeing the snake staff was scared later it was released in Forest. pic.twitter.com/TBUuaWZXgH
— Pinky Rajpurohit (@Madrassan) May 20, 2017