S African pilot lauded for safe emergency landing after deadly cobra rears its head in cockpit
Johannesburg: South African pilot Rudolf Erasmus has been lauded by flight experts for a safe emergency landing after a highly venomous Cape cobra reared its head in the cockpit mid-flight.
Erasmus, who has been flying for the past five years, maintained his nerve as the cobra slid back under his seat as soon as he saw it.
He was flying a small aircraft with four passengers on Monday morning, from Worcester to Nelspruit.
Erasmus explained his dilemma to the website TimeLive.
“When we did the preflight [procedure] on Monday morning, the people at Worcester airfield told us they had seen a Cape cobra lying underneath the wing on Sunday afternoon. They tried to catch it themselves but unfortunately it sought refuge inside the engine cowlings. The group opened the cowlings but the snake was not there so they assumed it had slithered away,” he said.
“I usually travel with a water bottle that I lodge between my leg and my hip towards the side wall of the aircraft. When I felt this cold sensation where my love handles are, I thought my bottle was dripping. As I turned to my left and looked down, I saw the cobra putting its head back underneath my seat," ,” Erasmus said.
He said that for a moment he was stunned silent.
“I had a moment of stunned silence, not sure if I should tell the passengers because I didn't want to cause a panic. But obviously they needed to know at some point what was going on,” he said.
“I just said, 'listen, there's a problem. The snake is inside the aircraft. I've got a feeling it's under my seat so we are going to have to get the plane on the ground as soon as possible,” he said.
The flight was close to the airport at Welkom, so Erasmus declared an emergency with the control tower in Johannesburg.
“I told them I had an unwelcomed passenger. As soon as the aircraft came to a stop, we started getting out. The three passengers in the back came out first and then the one sitting in front with me,” Erasmus said.
“I got out last and as I rolled the seat forward, I saw it curled underneath my seat. We contacted a few people around trying to get some snake handlers but by the time they arrived it had disappeared inside the aircraft again,” Erasmus said.
Engineers stripped parts of the plane in an attempt to find the snake but were unsuccessful by the time night fell, when they decided to continue the next morning.
They also left some maize meal around the plane, to see if the cobra perhaps slithered out during the night, but this was still undisturbed the next morning.
Erasmus said they are hoping it found its way out earlier while they were waiting for the engineers.
Aviation specialist and SA chief air show commentator Brian Emmenis, who has been in aviation for 38 years, told the website Erasmus had displayed “the greatest skill in aviation”.
Emmenis said he had never heard of such a case in his four decades in the aviation industry.
“The weather was horrendous. The pilot had done well, having to concentrate on foul weather, having a cobra in his aircraft and four passengers to look after,” Emmenis said, adding that if the cobra had bit the pilot, he would have died.
“He is an absolute hero. He could have panicked. He could have put that aeroplane in an uncontrollable spin. He could have rolled the aircraft with passengers falling all over the show, and with the bad weather, he could have lost sight of the ground and crashed, not only killing those on board but also people on the ground,” Emmenis said.
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Media dinner shooting suspect wrote about targeting of administration officials, Trump says
Washington (AP): The man accused of trying to storm the ballroom at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner with guns and knives had written about targeting Trump administration officials, and his family raised concerns with law enforcement before the event, President Donald Trump said Sunday in an interview on Fox News Channel.
The accused gunman's family had alerted police in Connecticut, Trump said, revealing new details about a chaotic encounter that disrupted one of Washington's glitziest annual events the night before.
The suspect, identified by law enforcement officials as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, was expected to face criminal charges on Monday from the Justice Department, whose acting leader, Todd Blanche, said the suspect travelled by train from California and checked in as a guest days earlier at the Washington hotel where the Saturday night gala dinner was held with its typically tight security.
Law enforcement officials who have interviewed Allen's relatives, examined the gunman's electronic devices and his writings preliminarily believe he intended to target administration members in attendance at the dinner.
He attempted to charge into the cavernous ballroom at the Washington Hilton but was tackled to the ground in a violent scene that resulted in shots being fired, Trump being hurried off the stage and guests ducking for cover beneath their tables.
“It does appear that he did in fact set out to target folks who work in the administration, likely including the president,” Blanche told NBC's “Meet the Press.”
The suspect is believed to have purchased the two firearms he carried within the last couple of years, Blanche said. He is not being cooperative and is expected to face multiple charges on Monday.
Video posted by Trump showed the suspect running past security barricades as Secret Service agents ran toward him. One officer was shot in a bullet-resistant vest but was recovering, officials said. The gunman was taken into custody and was not injured, but was being evaluated at a hospital, police said.
“He failed,” Blanche said on CBS's “Face the Nation.” “Law enforcement did their jobs.”
Authorities believe the suspect fired the shot that hit the Secret Service officer, who is expected to make a full recovery, Blanche said.
“He's going to be great, he's going to be fine, and thank God he was wearing a bulletproof vest,” Blanche said Sunday on ABC's “This Week.”
Social media posts that appear to match the suspect show he is a highly educated tutor and amateur video game developer.
A May 2025 profile photo of Allen appears to match the appearance of the man in a photo of the alleged attacker being taken into custody that was posted Saturday night by Trump.
The photo, posted to the social networking site LinkedIn, shows him in a cap and gown after graduating with a master's degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Allen earned a bachelor's degree in 2017 in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He listed his involvement there in a Christian student fellowship and a campus group that battled with Nerf guns.
The shooting at the security barricades happened minutes after the event got underway.
The Secret Service and other authorities swarmed the room as guests ducked under tables by the hundreds. Gasps echoed through the ballroom as guests realised something was happening. Hundreds of journalists immediately got on phones to call in information.
“Out of the way, sir!” someone yelled. Others yelled to duck. From one corner, a “God Bless America” chant began as the president was escorted offstage. Outside the hotel, members of the National Guard and other authorities flooded the area as helicopters circled overhead.
After an initial attempt to resume the event, it was scrapped for the night and will be rescheduled.
Trump was unusually conciliatory after what he saw as a third attempt on his life in less than two years. He suggested that his personal politics had made him a repeated target, but he also called for unity and bipartisan healing in an increasingly violent world.
“It's always shocking when something like this happens. Happened to me, a little bit. And that never changes,” Trump told reporters in a hastily organised news conference at the White House late Saturday.
