Huge huntsman spider drops on pilot as plane lands in Australia

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Mark Saunokonoko - Stuff.co.nz




A giant huntsman emerged on the cockpit ceiling of a Cessna and dropped on top of a panicked pilot, just as the single propeller plane was landing at a tiny airfield in the Northern Territory, Australia.

New South Wales tourist Sean Hancock, who was a passenger alongside his wife Colleen and the pilot, called it a “great Northern Territory experience.”

The spider, which Hancock described as a 15-centimetre “big boy”, had been spotted inside the small plane a week earlier, but workers thought it had escaped.

Not so.

Instead, it could be seen in the video scuttling behind a windscreen visor and then dropping somewhere in the cabin, after it had bounced off the pilot's lap.

“He's panicking, trying to brush it off his leg,” Hancock said, describing the pilot's reaction. “He wasn't a fan at all.”

Hancock had been videoing the plane's descent as it tracked towards a small red-brown airstrip, framed by lush green vegetation.

“I noticed the pilot leaning over to the left and looking over his shoulder at my wife,” he said.

His wife Colleen then pointed up.

“I saw the spider and I just started laughing because I knew it was just a harmless huntsman,” Hancock said.



As the plane touched down, the vibrations shook the huntsman loose.

“He'd have been a good 15-centimetres across,” he said.

“He was a big boy.”

Hancock, who owns pet snakes, said he wasn't scared by the stowaway.

After the flight, Hancock and his wife went to watch “croc jumping” to round out what he said was a perfect day in the Northern Territory.

[lost in melb.]

[deebakes]