Sep

5

Air India serving snakes on board?

September 5, 2008 posted by indiatime |

maharaja with a snakeFor passengers traveling on the Air India passenger jet from Kashmir to New Delhi the day before, the journey came close to becoming a harrowing experience from hell, when the plane crew discovered that one of the co-passengers was a poisonous cobra. No, it wasn’t some human fellow passenger tuning into a cobra (as frequently seen on India’s TV soaps). It was a real cobra, an authentic snake, a no-nonsense reptile from the animal kingdom.

Air India tried to take the bite off the news, contending that the snake was not a cobra, but just another snake. The airline confessed that a snake was indeed found on the plane, but maintained that it was found not in-flight, but found coiled up under the seat when the plane was parked at the New Delhi airport for maintenance after it had landed (meaning the snake was most probably on the flight and not detected until later).

Efforts to corner the snake proved futile, however. The cabin crew and maintenance workers removed fuselage panels, fumigated the plane and short of inviting expert snake charmers to charm it out of the plane, they did everything they could.

Strangely, Air India denied reports that the plane’s next flight from Delhi to Mumbai was delayed. In the same breath that the spokesperson denied the delay reports, he also confessed that Air India had no idea where the snake was.

snakes on a planeSo, the next time you take up your seat inside an Air India flight, look under your seat first. Then look under the seat in front, which would be the space that will host your feet for the length of the journey. If you do see anything that resembles a snake, do not waste your precious time on the flight attendant call button. Do not waste your time calling 911 or 100 or whatever the code where you come from is. Shout as hard as you can. Wave, jump, put out a shrill cry for help with your best horrror-film face on.

Speaking of horror films, years ago, David Dalessandro, a University of Pittsburgh administrator, wrote a story about snakes on a plane, after he read about reports on snakes inside world war II cargo planes in southeast Asia. That story turned into a B-movie a few years ago,. Now that India has its own authentic snake story, there is a good chance to see a flick that will soon delight us with cobras on an Indian airliner, a few romantic songs woven in the Bollywood beat, one of Bollywood’s Khans as a pilot, one of our sexy item heroines undulating her way through the isle serving spicy breasts and thighs to passengers who have already turned to chicken hearing about a snake on their plane.


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2 Comments so far

  1. mumbaikar on December 30, 2008 6:08 am

    Here is an article on poisonous snakes from Mumbai, India. Surprising to learn that such a huge mega city has its share of snakes. Thankfully, antivenin is available locally from Haffkine Institute.

  2. KakViotoRaxia on January 28, 2009 5:45 am

    I’ve found http://www.indiatime.com by using Yahoo

    Allo
    hey

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