I am certain you will find this tale of a snake on a plane delightful for obvious reasons. A flight from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau made an emergency landing last week after a passenger spotted this stowaway slithering through a light fixture in the fuselage. The passenger did what any of us would do, and immediately uploaded video of the reptile to TikTok.
The AirAsia Airline flight was diverted to Kuching Airport in southeast Malaysia for decontamination, CNN Türk reports:
“Seen a snake on a plane on a flight from KL to Tawau,” according to a translation of the caption. “The plane was forced to make an emergency landing at the Kuching Airport.”
The airline’s chief security officer confirmed the startling incident in a statement to CNN Türk.
“As soon as the captain was notified, the plane was diverted to Kuching to be disinfected,” AirAsia’s Liong Tien Ling said.
The captain’s “appropriate action” kept passengers and crew members safe, Ling said. No one aboard the flight was ever “at any risk” and no injuries were reported, according to the report.
The travelers were later diverted to Tawau, CNN Türk reported.
So all’s well that ends well. Of course, many outlets are feverishly reporting there are mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane (we are certainly not above it) but the movie Snakes On A Plane came out in 2006, and I can’t remember a single thing about it except Samuel L Jackson yells “I have had it with these mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane!” That very moment is engrained in my memory along with thousands of spoofs and rip off and memes. It was, and remains, a cultural phenomena.
Super Bowl commercials referencing movies from the ’90s or the TV show The Sopranos, which ended in 2007, got me thinking about this: Just how long are we going to be quoting this ultimately forgettable film? Well, look at how long cultural references from the 20th Century have remained. If you’re American, and even if you aren’t, you’ve likely seen films like Casablanca or It’s a Wonderful Life referenced through popular media to this day. You recognize it, even if you know nothing of the original films. Kinda depressing that this quote from a movie like Snakes On A Plane might be our generation’s, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”