A PILOT was bitten by a tarantula and suffered an allergic reaction in a horrifying mid-air drama.

The spider crept onto the plane during a stopover in the Moroccan city of Casablanca before the jet carried on to Spain.

The Iberia plane’s onward journey was delayed so it could be fumigated and the pilot treated with anti-inflammatory medicine.

Iberia Airbus A320 flying between Dusseldorf in Germany and Madrid’s Barajas Airport on Friday afternoon when the pilot was attacked by the critter.

It is understood the spider crawled onto the plane earlier in the week in Casablanca.

The plane was fumigated when it reached the Spanish capital, prompting a three-hour delay.

Passengers were forced to wait to board for its onward journey to the Galician city of Vigo being informed about what had happened.

The pilot is said to have been treated with Urbason, the marketing name for a medication called Methylprednisolone.

It is widely used in the treatment of inflammatory diseases and to reduce the inflammation and symptoms associated with severe allergic reactions.

Iberia Airlines has said he is doing fine and has suffered no lasting health effects.

After leaving Casablanca to return to Madrid on Tuesday, the plane the spider appeared on had touched down in cities including Brussels, Zurich and Toulouse.

Galician newspaper La Voz de Galicia said some passengers were constantly checking their seats and the aisle for fear other spiders had got onto the plane despite the fumigation before it touched down in Vigo around midnight on Friday.

Last November a plane was grounded for five days after more than 130 hamsters in the hold managed to escape their cages as maintenance workers tried to round up the power-eating rodents.

Baggage handlers are said to have discovered the cages the animals were in had been damaged and 132 of them were roaming around the cargo hold when the jet touched down in the Azores archipelago capital Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel Island.

The hamsters were reportedly part of a delivery for a pet shop on the island which also included ferrets and some birds.

The mass four-legged break-out prevented the aircraft from returning to the Portuguese capital Lisbon where it had started its journey.

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.

Videos and photos of the 2022 incident went viral on social media and showed the reptile slithering through the plane’s light fixtures.

The airline said in a statement at the time: “This is a very rare incident which can occur on any aircraft from time to time.”