Well, here’s a story that those of us with arachnophobia won’t appreciate (thanks to Klaus for flagging this)…
Iberia captain with spider allergy bitten by tarantula
This incident happened on Friday, February 21, 2025, and involves Iberia flight IB754, from Dusseldorf (DUS) to Madrid (MAD). The 894-mile flight was operated by a 23-year-old Airbus A320 with the registration code EC-IEF.
At some point around the middle of the flight, the captain was reportedly bitten by a tarantula, while in his seat in the flight deck. To make matters worse, the captain has a spider allergy. So the crew urgently treated him with a corticosteroid from the first aid kit, in order to prevent him from suffering an allergic reaction.
Despite the scare, the 2hr11min flight was completed without issue, and the captain was ultimately okay. Interestingly, the passengers weren’t made aware of what happened, so I guess the crew did a good job keeping it on the down low. In all honesty, that’s probably for the better, since I can only imagine the panic that information would’ve caused.
The complicated search to find the tarantula
It’s good that the plane was back on the ground with the captain safe, but that wasn’t the end of the saga. As you’d expect, there was one additional wrinkle — the tarantula hadn’t actually been caught.
Once in Madrid, a full fumigation of the plane was carried out, following the company’s disinfection protocol. This caused the connecting flight to Vigo (VIG) to be delayed by nearly three hours. Initially, the passengers had reportedly been told that the flight was delayed due to a technical fault, rather than the real reason… fair enough, I suppose!
Unfortunately after all of those procedures had been carried out, the spider still hadn’t been found. The real reason for the delay did eventually get out, and passengers report that there was a tense atmosphere onboard, with people constantly checking around their seats. The flight from Madrid to Vigo was initially supposed to depart at 7:45PM, but only ended up taking off at 10:42PM.
I’ve gotta say, if a tarantula had gone “missing” on an aircraft I was flying on a subsequent segment, I’d probably rather just not know. It’s entirely possible that the spider died or escaped somehow, but still, the possibility of knowing it could be alive and onboard would creep me out.
Bottom line
An Iberia captain was reportedly bitten by a tarantula mid-flight. Worst of all, he had an allergy — fortunately the crew treated him, and the flight continued without incident. However, the spider hadn’t been captured, so the disinfection protocol was carried out. The tarantula was never found. Hopefully it doesn’t reappear…
What do you make of this Iberia tarantula incident?