Don’t read this if you have a plane ticket and hate snakes

In scenes reminiscent of the cult horror movie Snakes on a Plane, four baby pythons escaped on a passenger plane in Australia leading to a prolonged search of the aircraft.

The photo shows a Stimson’s python about the size of the snakes on the Qantas plane.

Twelve non-venomous Stimson's pythons were being transported on a flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne on Tuesday. They were in the plane's cargo area in a bag inside a plastic foam box , which was studded with air holes.

When the flight landed, it was discovered that four snakes had escaped from the package, a Qantas spokeswoman said. It is not known where the snakes got to during the flight, or if there were any chance encounters with passengers, but it would appear there were no altercations either in the toilet cubicles or in the plane's main cabin.

Unlike the cult movie, airline staff were not forced to shoot out windows to blow the snakes out the cockpit. Instead they fumigated the entire plane to make sure the snakes did not re-emerge on another flight.

In the very unlikely event the snakes survived, they could grow up to one meter long, making them undoubtedly easier to find.

Stimson's pythons live in western and central Australia in arid, woodland and rocky areas.

Although they are not poisonous, the small snake, which is not endangered, shares attributes with larger variations of the species, such as coiling around its prey and squeezing until suffocation.

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