Terrified passengers fled in terror when a huge python slithered out between seats on a packed train.

The snake made its way along the seats and up the side of a window as commuters raced into one end of the carriage.

One eye-witness filmed the scene while on board a train from Surabaya in Indonesia’s East Java Province, which was on its way to the capital 490 miles to the west.

After the snake slides its head between a seat and the train wall, a public-spirited passenger leans in and grabs it, reports the Mirror.

A friend then grabs its tail and together they stand holding the snake. They are thought to have alerted staff at the next station.

It is not known what became of the snake but it is not thought to have been harmed as it was identified as a reticulated python, which is a protected species.

The country’s state-run rail firm PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) said it had asked passengers if any of them were the owner of the snake but that no one had admitted to it being theirs.

KAI spokesman Agus Komarudin said people smuggling wildlife onboard its services was a problem it had identified and was addressing.

He said: ‘While we do not have X-rays yet, we may yet in the future, but until then regulations at our stations will be tightened so that this sort of thing will not happen again. ‘We also apologise to the passengers for the inconvenience.’

The incident follows a similar one in November, when the snake involved was not so lucky.

The unidentified reptile was in a luggage rack on a train from Bogor in Indonesia’s West Java Province to Angke in West Jakarta when a passenger grabbed it by the tail and smacked it to death on the train floor.