Scorpion Scare Inside Aircraft Causes Panic, Staff Fails To Catch Creature

When a female passenger opened the baggage shelf on a Lion Air flight, a live scorpion crawled out of the space, sparking panic among the rest of the people onboard.

The incident took place on Thursday after flight JT-293 took off from Sultan Syarif Kasim II International Airport in Pekanbaru, Indonesia, at 5 p.m. local time (5 a.m. EST) and landed in Jakarta two hours later. When a woman opened the overhead bin to takeout her carry-on luggage, the 12-inch venomous creature escaped, causing passengers of the busy plane to scramble for the exit.

In a video of the poisonous arachnid, recorded by passenger Karim Taslin, the scorpion’s legs could be seen dangling from the ceiling of the cabin.

“When the plane had landed, one passenger was taking their things out of the compartment, that's when suddenly the scorpion appeared above our seat. I was in row 19 with two other passengers, an elderly married couple. When we saw the scorpion above our heads we rushed out as fast as we could,” Taslin said, Strait Times reported.

He also blamed the airline crew for their delayed response, which gave the scorpion enough time to disappear into the plane’s plastic fittings.

“I didn't have time to catch the scorpion. So it disappeared into the cabin baggage area. I pressed the emergency button. There was no response, so I shouted for help. But at that time the atmosphere in the cabin was crowded with passengers picking up their luggage, so the crew were [sic] also slow to arrive at row 19. When I think back it makes me shiver. The scorpion could have dropped on our heads and stung us,” he added.

According to witnesses on the plane, the creature resembled a poisonous Asian forest scorpion – one of the most aggressive scorpions found in Indonesia, which was locally known as kalajengking.

Lion Air spokesman Danang Mandala Prihantoro said that after getting complaints about the scorpion, they checked out Taslin’s video, which was posted online, and deduced that the creature looked more like a spider. “From the observations according to the photograph and video, the animal resembles a spider,” he said.

He added that the Boeing 737-800NG plane was well-prepared and had passed all its necessary pre-flight tests, making it fit to fly. Nevertheless, airline technicians conducted a thorough scan of the aircraft after receiving the complaints but were unable to find the scorpion.

“Ground service officers and technicians immediately carried out an in-depth search and thorough handling of the aircraft after the passengers and cargo were removed, but no animals were found,” the spokesman said. According to Mail Online, the creature was believed to have been living inside the aircraft for at least a week.