Rudolph Erasmus had to remain calm and make an emergency landing after noticing the snake

A brave pilot had to make an emergency landing after he noticed a deadly cobra slithering under his seat.

Rudolph Erasmus was flying a private plane from the South African city of Bloemfontein to Pretoria when he spotted the reptile.

The snake had been spotted the previous day but Rudolph couldn’t find it before boarding and assumed it had left the aircraft overnight.

However, while he was 11,000 feet in the air, with the four passengers he was transporting, Rudolph felt something wet on his back.

He told the BBC: ‘I felt this cool sensation, sort of, crawling up my shirt.

‘As I turned to the left and looked down I saw the cobra receding its head backwards underneath the seat.’

He quickly realised he needed to make an emergency landing as a bite from a Cape cobra can kill someone in just 30 minutes.

A Cape cobra bite can kill their victim in just 30 minutes (Picture: Getty)

Rudolph considered not telling his passengers about the snake, because he was worried about causing ‘mass panic’.

But he eventually made the decision to be honest and explain why they needed to get the plane on the ground.

Speaking about how they reacted to the news, he said: ‘You could hear a needle drop and I think everyone froze for a moment or two.’

They landed in the city of Welkom and thankfully no one was harmed.

But the snake is yet to be found, after engineers who searched the plane failed to spot it again.

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The pilot said: ‘I felt this cool sensation, sort of, crawling up my shirt.’