A holiday flight from London Gatwick to Marrakech was forced to make an emergency landing after a passenger began shouting about imaginary snakes loose in the cabin.
The easyJet service, carrying 190 passengers, was diverted to Faro Airport in Portugal after a man—reportedly wearing a snake print T-shirt—began hallucinating and yelling: “Snakes on a plane! We need to land!”
A source told The Sun: “It sounds funny to hear a passenger screaming ‘Snakes on the Plane!’ but it was incredibly scary for the families on the easyJet flight. No one quite knew what was going on, or initially if the flyer had actually seen a snake loose among the cabin at 30,000ft.” It later became clear the man was allegedly under the influence and imagining things.
Cabin crew reportedly tried to calm the situation before pilots made the decision to divert the aircraft for safety reasons. Portuguese police were waiting on the tarmac at Faro Airport, where they escorted the disruptive passenger off the plane.
The flight eventually resumed and arrived in Marrakech around eight hours after its original departure from London.
This isn’t the first time easyJet has had to remove disruptive passengers mid-flight. In January, a woman in her 50s was removed from a Belfast to Manchester flight after launching a racist tirade against fellow passengers, including Muslims and Ukrainians.
Eyewitness Shauna Corr, 44, described the incident: “Her language was atrocious and racist, she was making very derogatory comments… at one stage she even struck out at Ukrainian people.”
easyJet has not issued a formal statement regarding the latest diversion, but the airline is known to take a zero-tolerance approach to disorderly conduct onboard its flights.
The airline continues to work closely with law enforcement to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers and crew.
