Passenger Abandons Pet Snake At Newark Airport Security Checkpoint

Public places will always carry a sign that says, “Please take care of your valuables” and they do it for good reason. With the number of people coming in out, there's no telling that owners can and will forget something, especially if they're busy with something themselves.

This is exactly what happened at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey when a 15-inch snake was spotted by a young girl who immediately alerted the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The reptile was spotted by the youngster in Terminal C of the said airport.

“You could not make this up,” Lisa Farbstein told one source, adding that the ringed-neck snake (Diadophis punctatus) didn't make it to the plane “much to the relief of whoever would have been sitting next to it.”

The harmless reptile, who was later described as having a yellow band around its neck, was immediately contained by TSA personnel who placed a gray checkpoint bin commonly used to “holding sneaky sneakers.”

Another source reported that the checkpoint lane where the snake was discovered was closed. Passengers were asked to clear the area while the Port Authority Police Department removed the reptile.

It was later re-opened to accommodate the airport's passengers.

Authorities believe that the snake belonged to one of the airport's passengers and had lost it. Furthermore, they will not be reviewing CCTV footages, claiming that it would “take too much time.”

TSA New Jersey Federal Security Director Tom Carter explained that it's common for travelers to leave items at the checkpoint, but this is the first time “someone has left a snake behind.”

Keys, ID, sunglasses, gloves and hats are some of the things Carter mentioned that passengers often leave behind.

“We have a fairly robust lost and found program that reunites passengers with lost items, but this passenger doesn't need to call us about his snake,” he added.

Farbstein said that it was up to the airline to allow pets like the found snake to board their aircraft, meaning that there would have been a huge possibility that it could have made it inside.

The ringed-neck snake came in three weeks after a 3-foot long mangrove snake escaped its enclosure at the Bronx Zoo. Officials of the zoo said that the venomous serpent escaped through a wire-covered vent in its glass case at the Jungle World exhibit on August 6.