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Watch: Live snake found in overhead cabin of Air Asia's Bangkok flight
A video of the incident showed the snake slithering over the cabin lights above the overhead compartment.
Chaos ensued on a domestic Air Asia flight in Thailand after a live snake was discovered by passengers in an overhead bin.
The incident took place on a flight travelling from the capital city of Bangkok to the southern province of Phuket on January 13, according to CNN.
A video of the incident showed the snake slithering over the cabin lights above the overhead compartment. A flight attendant was seen trying to capture the snake with a water bottle.
"Passengers on an Air Asia plane flying from #Bangkok to Phuket found a #snake in the cabin crawling along the overhead bin," an X user wrote while sharing the video on social. HT could not verify the authenticity of the video.
In a statement to CNN, Air Asia Thailand said it was aware of an incident onboard flight – FD3015 – that departed from the Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok on January 13.
The company said that the aircraft was immediately inspected by the relevant engineering and safety teams upon landing. It, however, made no mention of what happened to the snake thereafter.
Meanwhile, the head of corporate safety for the airline, Phol Poompuang, said that the sighting of the snake was a "very rare incident". He added that flight attendants are "well trained to handle" such an occurrence.
“Flight attendants were notified before landing in Phuket after a passenger noticed a small snake in the overhead luggage compartment,” he said in the statement, according to CNN. "AirAsia crew were well trained to handle an occurrence of this nature and relocated passengers from the area as a precautionary measure.”
This is the second incident when a snake was found onboard an AirAsia plane.
In February 2022, a spotted python was found onboard Air Asia's domestic flights in Malaysia travelling from the capital Kuala Lumpur to Sabah, according to CNN. After the discovery, the plane was re-routed to Kuching International Airport.
