Iberia flight emergency lands after pilot with allergy to spiders bitten by tarantula mid-air en route from Germany to Spain

The mid-air drama occurred on Friday afternoon (21 February) on an Iberia Airbus A320 flying between Dusseldorf in Germany and Madrid’s Barajas Airport. The plane’s journey was delayed so it could be fumigated and the pilot, who is allergic to spiders, was treated with anti-inflammatory medicine.

The spider is thought to have got onto the plane during a stopover in the Moroccan city of Casablanca earlier in the week. After the drama, passengers waited for hours to reboard the plane before it left for Vigo.

Iberia Airlines said the pilot is ‘doing fine’ after receiving treatment in Madrid. After leaving Casablanca to return to Madrid on Tuesday, the plane touched down in other cities including Brussels, Zurich and Toulouse.

Newspaper La Voz de Galicia said some passengers still checked their surroundings for fear other spiders had got onto the plane, even after fumigation. Last January chaos erupted on a domestic AirAsia Thailand flight between Bangkok and the southern province of Phuket after a live snake was discovered by passengers in an overhead bin.

In February 2022, a spotted python was found onboard one of the airline's domestic flights in Malaysia traveling from the capital Kuala Lumpur to Sabah. The plane ended up being re-routed to Kuching International Airport in the state of Sarawak because of the incident.