An Australian pilot was forced to make a landing reminiscent of a Hollywood thriller after a snake appeared from behind his dashboard and slithered across his leg during a solo cargo flight.

Unsure whether or not the snake was venomous, Braden Blennerhassett said on Thursday his heart was racing as he tried to keep his hands while manoeuvring the plane back to the northern city of Darwin. The snake popped its head out from behind the instrument panel several times, Blennerhassett said, and then crawled across his leg during his approach to the airport.

"I've seen it on a movie once, but never in an aeroplane," Blennerhassett told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, referring to the 2006 film Snakes on a Plane in which deadly snakes are deliberately released in an airliner as part of a murder plot.

The 26-year-old Air Frontier pilot was alone in a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron G-58 and had just left Darwin airport on a cargo run to a remote outback settlement on Tuesday when he saw the snake.

The director of Air Frontier, Geoff Hunt, described Blennerhassett as a cool character who radioed air traffic control to report: "I'm going to have to return to Darwin. I've got a snake on board the plane."

"You're trying to be as still as you possibly can and when you've got your hands on the power levers," Blennerhassett said. "You're kind of worried about the snake taking that as a threat and biting you."

"As the plane was landing, the snake was crawling down my leg, which was frightening," he added.

Once the plane landed, a firefighter spotted the snake but authorities were not immediately able to catch it, Air Frontier official Michael Ellen said. A trap baited with a mouse had failed to catch the snake by Thursday, and the plane remained grounded.

Wildlife ranger Sally Heaton said she suspected the creature was a golden tree snake, a non-venomous species that can grow up to 1.5m (5ft) in length.

Hunt said he was not aware of a snake being found in a plane before in Australia, but that he had heard of a young chicken being found alive under the floor of a plane and an escaped juvenile crocodile crawling under a pilot's rudder pedal.