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February 7, 2019 | Daniel Fishbayn

People Share The Most Insane Things They Witnessed On A Flight


Flying isn’t always the most pleasant experience, but more often than not we get from Point A to Point B in peace. Sometimes, though, events unfold on the plane that make us want to grab a parachute and jump right out of the emergency hatch. It’s too bad those things are so hard to open.

The people who shared their stories below were all well-aware of the claustrophobic nature of airplanes when they experienced something unbelievable on a flight. Sometimes, they laughed it off, while other times the experience was no laughing matter. Check out their stories below!


43. I Guess She Was Okay With It

On the way to Japan I look across the aisle and see an elderly man, sitting with an elderly woman I assume to be his wife. He reaches into his bag and brings out a large stash of dirty magazines. He then proceeds to sit and look at them for many hours of the flight.

Fire Me, I Dare You factsGetty Images

42. Safety First

I once saw a guy wearing a bicycle helmet during the entire 7-hour flight.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsMax Pixel

41. Now That’s Just Cruel

We were about to land, and got the typical message from the pilot talking about the weather, etc. At the end of the speech, he exclaims "NO DON'T TOUCH THA-," right as the loudspeaker swiftly cuts out.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsPixabay

40. Do You Really Want to Find Out?

I was on a military flight from Diego Garcia to the Philippines. A dude got close to the emergency escape hatch and said, “What would happen if I opened this?” I put on my seat belt as fast as I could. The flight crew secured him in his seat. It woke me up.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsMax Pixel

39. Boy Meets Wall

I was on a flight from Amsterdam to New York one time, and there was a kid who was running up and down the aisles trying to bite people. As he was heading down the aisle at full speed, a stewardess suddenly pulled the refreshments cart into the aisle right in front of it and he ran smack into it, face-first. She said to him, “Oh, sorry, didn't see you coming. You shouldn't run like that down the aisle,” or something like that.

I know she did it on purpose. It was awesome.

Evil People Who Made History QuizShutterstock

38. That Escalated Quickly

My nose started bleeding and would. Not. Stop. Apparently, you don't clot at altitude. That was also the day I discovered that if you lock yourself in the toilets for too long, they bang on the door till you open it. I was shirtless (I'm female) and COVERED in blood.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsWikipedia

37. The Eternal Struggle

Once I was in the bathroom on an airplane and we hit some turbulence. I whizzed everywhere.

Buzz Aldrin FactsWikimedia Commons Jax House

36. Wave to the Nice Man, Sweetie

I once looked out the window to see a MiG-23 Soviet jet fighter flying beside us. It was close enough to clearly make out the pilot looking at us. He stayed there for a minute or two longer, then banked away. This was in '88 or '89, flying from Moscow to Kiev.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsAir Force Reserve Command

35. Chorus of Tears

Not just one.

Not just two.

Not even just three.

Four. Four screaming babies that refused to go to sleep and instead turned what would have been a mild 3-and-a-half-hour flight into one of the single worst experiences of my life. My only comfort was that I was not alone in my misery.

Something Wasn’t Right factsPixabay

34. Presidential Plane Ride

When I was 9 years old, Jimmy Carter rode on the same flight as my family and I. I got to shake hands with him before we took off.

GettyImages-2200948 Jimmy Carter In Front Of U.S. FlagGetty Images

33. I Want That When I Retire

I was on the retirement flight for a long-time pilot. We received the fire truck salute on the way to the gate. Basically, they shoot water from their trucks across the taxiway, right over the plane as it passes underneath.

Julia Roberts QuizShutterstock

32. They Were Quite the Bird-en On Him

I’m a commercial airline pilot. Once, a bunch of large birds, cranes I think, came wandering across the runway while I was trying to land. I had to do a go-around but managed to land the second time around, and it was my smoothest landing ever.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsWikimedia Commons

31. Lazy Landing

I was on a domestic flight from Montreal to Toronto, where the pilot accidentally landed at an international gate, so we all had to go through international customs. More than half of the passengers didn’t have passports and had to get some staff to escort them out of customs after a while of waiting. The whole thing took hours.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsFlickr Reg Natarajan

30. I Think You All Got Pranked

Just over a year ago, I made a cross-country move from Louisiana to California. Not long before that, though, I had to fly out here to look for apartments and my flight from Dallas to San Francisco experienced a rather odd mechanical failure just before take-off. "Well, folks," the captain said over the intercom, "I'm, uh... I'm holding the door to the First Class bathroom door in my hands here. It looks like it... uh... fell off."

He paused for a moment, perhaps to let news of this dire calamity sink in. "We're going to get the mechanic out here to fix it for us. It, uh... it looks like it only needs a screw, so we should be in the air before too long." I had already been delayed by a full day at this point—inclement weather having canceled my previous morning's flight—and I could all but count the precious seconds ticking away.

After about half an hour, the captain came back to offer us an update. "It, uh, looks like the screw is a, uh... a special part. The mechanic is going to have to go get one. Not long now, though, folks. Just, uh... sit tight, and we'll take off as soon as we can." Groans punctuated the announcement, and I heard a man in front of me mutter about how First Class passengers didn't need their own bathroom.

Several more minutes went by, after which the tense atmosphere was again filled with the sound of the captain's voice. "Okay," the man said, "So, uh... the Uber is here to take the mechanic to Home Depot. Once he buys the screw and brings it back, we should be able to get underway." At first, everyone in the airplane seemed to think that the announcement was a joke... but an air of horrified dread darkened the cabin as the captain's words were revealed to be a completely factual account of events.

Worse still, the trip to the hardware store turned out to be for naught, as it was soon discovered that the door was missing a washer and some ball bearings, which were allegedly stored on the opposite side of the airport. This necessitated an even longer trip on the part of the mechanic, who—after having allegedly been informed of the problem by cellphone—needed to make his way to whatever hidden cache of parts would house the ones he needed.

I found myself wondering why he didn't just buy them at Home Depot.

Awkward Conversations to Translate factsShutterstock

29. Light on His Feet

I was trying to go to sleep a couple of rows behind a kid with those light up shoes. His parents seemed oblivious to how much glare it was causing, especially since the lights were darkened throughout the rest of the cabin. I could understand if they need to walk to the bathroom or whatnot. In my case, however, nope, the kid was firmly in his seat, and the lights were going off from his shoes (perhaps from him hitting the back of the next row).

That, I’ll never understand. Also, I remember being a kid in the early 90s having shoes like those, but I certainly don't remember them being nearly as bright or seizure-inducing as they seem to be today.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsPixabay

28. Freebies Get You Places

I walked onto the plane and gave the first flight attendant I saw a bag of Hershey's Miniatures: "This is for the crew.” The whole flight I was given free headphones and all the free drinks I could handle. I tried to pay but she just kept giving me my money back with every drink.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsWikimedia Commons MissingHailstone

27. He Had All The Luck, But It Wasn’t Enough

A guy died next to me once. On a flight from Maui to Dallas, I was half-asleep in the second-to-last row of the plane. While I was listening to music and dozing, I suddenly heard a really loud, hard "THUD" next to me. I look over, and there's a man lying on the ground, completely still. I thought maybe he had tripped, but the flight attendant came running and found that he was unresponsive.

She frantically ran up and down the aisles asking for doctors. Coincidentally, the flight was full of vacationing doctors and nurses, all of them in ridiculous clothes. Two of the doctors who came back were in Hawaiian shirts and golf attire, and the female nurse who came back was wearing a very strappy, revealing blue Hawaiian print dress.

The doctors tried to wake the man up, but he was gone. I was surprised to find out just how much medical equipment they have on commercial flights. First, the docs whipped out a portable defibrillator and shocked the guy, then set up an IV drip for him. I never heard a word out of him or saw him move, and I’m not sure if they ever saw anything either.

Our flight was diverted to LA, and when we landed half a dozen paramedics ran on the plane to pull the guy out on a gurney. Unfortunately for me, this whole scenario set off a panic attack. I had to go find a nice spot in the aisle to lie down so that I didn't pass out and cause more problems for the crew and doctors. It was embarrassing.

Yep, they're crazy FactsPexels

26. Daredevil Pilot

The pilot, over the loudspeaker: "All right ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking...We're right on time for our landing in Chicago...We'll be making this flight at 50,000 MPH, flying at 500 feet." I will treasure that mental image forever.

Tom Hanks FactsShutterstock

25. You Can’t Argue With That Logic

We were flying from Atlanta to Washington DC. About 45 seconds after take-off, the guy beside me unbuckled himself and starting running up the incredibly steep aisle. The flight attendants immediately start yelling at him to sit down, even going so far as to fumble with the intercom. About 10 feet from the front of the plane, one of the crew said: "Sir, I'm going to have to demand you sit down."

He replied: "Ma'am, I am going to soil my pants." He barricaded himself in the bathroom for about 10 minutes. When he emerged, he was met with both clapping and angry looks from flight attendants. He ordered water with no ice in it when they got to our aisle.

Vegas factsGetty Images

24. Have an Ice Time Waiting

I was on a flight to Chicago. We were supposed to land at O'Hare, but about 30 minutes before landing, they told us it was too icy and we were being diverted to Midway—the two airports are about 26 miles apart. So we land at Midway, disembark, and as we are leaving the skyway, a gate agent runs up and tells us we need to get back on the plane.

They were now going to take it to O'Hare. We all said screw it, we'll stay here. She then informed us our bags wouldn't be getting unloaded, so we would need to go to the other airport to get them. We got back on the plane, and then had to wait about 20 minutes for them to de-ice the exterior. After that, it was a 15-minute flight to O'Hare.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsAF.mil

23. Too Good to Be True

I was about 15 and flirting with a cute girl in the seat next to me. My family was about two rows back with my younger brother, and the lady that occupied the third seat pretty much set me up for the entire flight. This elderly lady was the best wing-person ever. Anyway, that isn’t the crazy part. I get up to use the restroom, and the cute girl says she has to go too.

She gets out first, and I wait for her to finish up. We've been flirting pretty much the whole flight, and she knows that I'm right behind her in line. So she finishes using the bathroom and I walk in. Right there in the toilet is a gigantic, unflushed turd. To this day I have no idea how you respond to something like that.

Employees should have been fired factsShutterstock

22. Sympathy Isn’t Always A Good Thing

I was in an aisle seat on a flight from LA to Austin, Texas. About an hour into the flight, I notice this awful smell. I look up from my book just in time to see this 70-year-old woman heaving up in her lap. Since I'm what you might call a “sympathy heaver,” I turn toward the people in the other seats to try and avoid doing the same thing.

After about a minute of this, she is led to the bathroom. Still, I get to spend the rest of the flight gagging as this smell continues to permeate my nostrils. The flight attendants tried to clean it as best they could, but it made no real improvement.

Bizarre People factsShutterstock

21. Stick to the Script

So we're flying out of Cleveland, and the pilot comes over the PA and gives his welcome. “So we're just leaving Cleveland, and we should be in… ummm…." Then, slightly under his breath, but not quiet enough to hide it from everyone else, he says, "Where we going again?" There’s a long pause... then he bursts out, "Chicago!" Everyone laughed. Ah, good times in high times.

Burst Out Laughing factsShutterstock

20. Is There a Draft in Here?

About 20 minutes into a flight to Hawaii when I was 9, there was a really loud noise coming from behind us. My stepdad asked the flight attendant, "What's that noise?" She looked back and said, "Oh, the door isn't shut," then turned the handle and locked the door.

Things Witnessed On A Flight Facts

19. Ready, Aim, Fluff

In grade 12, I was on a band trip to New York. We flew there, as it's a long drive from Vancouver. We were seated alphabetically, and the school band took up a good ten rows of the plane. This also resulted in my two friends and I sitting close together. Toward the very end of the flight, my two friends turn to me and say that on the count of three, we're going to throw our in-flight pillows at another mutual friend some four or five rows back.

Pillows not being so aerodynamic, this led to only one of them hitting its intended target, and the other two hitting two other people. All three of the hit people grabbed their pillows and, in addition to the ones we just threw, chucked 'em back at us. Again, only some of them made it all the way back to us, with other people being hit and caught up in it.

Eventually, it spiraled so out of control that there was, for a good five or ten minutes, about nine pillows in the air at all times! The crew eventually made an announcement to ask passengers to "Please refrain from throwing loose items at each other.” The teachers were pissed, but it was so, so worth it.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsShutterstock

18. She Didn’t Play by the Rules

We've all had in-air experiences with crying babies, rude people, strange odors, and broken amenities, but those are pretty much par for the course when you fly. My story didn't come as the result of any such expected inconvenience, but rather at the hands of someone trying to be nice. I was about 8 years old, and although I can't recall what destination my family had chosen, I doubt if I'll ever forget the time that I spent on that flight.

Due to some issue or another with our tickets, the four of us—my mother, my father, my younger brother, and me—had been seated in seemingly random spots throughout the airplane. None of us were next to each other. This would have been fine if it hadn't been for the fact that my neighbor was an incredibly attractive young woman who seemed to be entirely oblivious to every rule that governed polite society.

Or, at least, every rule as they were understood by an 8-year-old. Within moments of sitting down next to the girl, she'd done her best to engage me in conversation. I knew that I wasn't supposed to speak to strangers, and thus her friendly small talk made me very uncomfortable. Not, as you might think, because I was wary of dialogue with her, but because I knew that my parents might walk by and catch me.

Her next transgression was taking out and turning on her Walkman while the plane was in the process of taking off. For those of you who may not recall, a Walkman was like an iPod, except that it could only hold about two dozen songs and it had a tendency to transform them into spaghetti. I can remember scrambling to grab the safety pamphlet from the seat in front of me, then frantically pointing at the section that warned about electronic devices being inactive during takeoff.

The girl just smiled reassuringly and kept right on with her forbidden activity, causing me to grip my armrest in terror. If that had been the end of things, I might have escaped without the psychological scarring that I still carry...but unfortunately, the young woman was far from finished. About midway through the flight, she dug through her purse and pulled out a small package of something, which she opened with a nonchalant smile.

"Max," she said to me, "Would you like a cherry cough drop?" Alarm bells rang in my head like they never had before. My mother had always told me that any stranger who offered me medicine was gearing up to do some very nasty things to me. She had never specified what those nasty things were, but I knew that they had to be truly abhorrent.

Maybe, though, just maybe, the girl didn't realize that cough drops were medicine, and was simply one of those people who ate them for their flavor. I'd heard legends of folks like that, and if it happened that my seatmate was one of them, maybe this was an opportunity for education.

"Oh, no, no thank you," I replied, "I'm not sick or anything."

"Okay!" the girl said brightly.

"...Are you sick?" I asked, hoping to prod the conversation forward. In the face of this new potential threat, I'd all but forgotten about not talking to strangers.

The young woman shook her head. "Nope!"

I felt the panic in my chest start to subside. "Then why are you eating cough drops? They're medicine, you know."

"Oh, I know!" the girl said with a laugh. "But they taste wonderful, and they help me relax."

The klaxons in my head started blaring with renewed vigor. Not only was this stranger talking to me, but she was also one of those people who ate medicine for fun...and she was trying to offer me some! I'd been warned about all three of those things, but never in my life had I expected to meet such a threatening trifecta of terror.

I spent the rest of the flight in complete silence, all the while ready to scream if the petite 17-year-old next to me showed any signs of attempting a kidnapping.

Awkward Conversations to Translate factsShutterstock

17. Snack Food Fallout

A lady sitting next to me, clearly inebriated, threw a Twinkie about five rows ahead of us and it basically exploded on this bald dude’s head. Cream went literally everywhere. He wasn’t pleased and she was escorted off after we landed.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsFlickr Richard Elzey

16. He Wanted a Challenge

Once, after they served breakfast, I watched the guy sitting next to me eat his yogurt with chopsticks.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsWikipedia

15. Upgrades Solve Everything

The plane depressurized as we were climbing. Masks went down, eardrums were damaged from the pressure change and from people’s screams, and I nearly lost my lunch as the plane dropped to get to a breathable atmosphere. On the plus side, I got upgraded to first class on the rescheduled flight the next morning.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsFlickr Delta News Hub

14. Keep a Cool Head

So, first off I'm not very fond of traveling but my friend was going so I really had no choice in the matter. Anyway, the day starts out with the normal airport panic and running to catch our flight. When we get there, it’s a full plane and we are crammed into the plane like sardines in a can. Now there must have been something wrong with the AC, because it was hot.

Imagine sitting in a leather-covered sauna wearing a fur coat. It was something like that. My friend strokes my hair and reassures me and then we take off, suffering silently with the heat getting worse. 20 minutes of boiling Hades later, my vision is starting to blur, my tongue is hanging out of my mouth, and I'm panting up a storm, feeling dizzy.

My friend tries a few things to cool me off, but that just causes a commotion and leads to having the whole plane staring at me. NOT the best thing for you, if you are already in distress. You probably won't believe this but I kid you not, maybe it was the heat, maybe too many drinks, but my best and trusted friend FLIPS OUT and tries to STUFF MY WHOLE HEAD into the airplane vent overhead!!!

Well, I'm ashamed to say I just lost it. Wouldn't you?! I was clawing at everything just trying to get away. I tried climbing into the seat in front, jumping around and begging for help, you name it. Five minutes into my panic attack I felt this pain in my chest and I pass out. The next thing I know I'm looking down at this chaos from above.

My friend is sitting there weeping and sobbing cradling my head. Crazy right? To top it off, some jerk a few rows back thinks this is the funniest thing in the world and takes a picture.

Childish Behavior From Adults factsPixabay

13. Flight Rewind

I was flying Calgary to Houston, which is about a four-hour direct flight. We were just about two hours into the flight, or coincidentally JUST about to Denver, when the pilot announced we would have to turn around back to Calgary! So back we go and land in about an hour and fifteen minutes—he really cranked on it.

We touch down and taxi over to the mechanics. They open the cargo door, and shut it again. And in 15 more minutes, we were fuelled up and in the air on our way to Houston. This time it was about a 3-hour flight, full thrust the whole way. Luckily, there was an industry guy behind me, and I overheard him speculating the reason.

His idea was that since the airline had paid mechanics in Calgary, and probably not in Denver, it would be cheaper for them to turn around and go all the way to Calgary, than to pay all the costs associated with landing in Denver. Luckily it was just a little glitch, and not a true problem, but it was anyone’s guess as to the true issue.

I have a friend that is very familiar with the inner workings of the plane, and he said that anytime they open the cargo door, and unplug a certain cable during maintenance, some switch has to be flipped, to reset that alarm system for that door. He said it's an extremely common mistake for that switch not getting flipped after work has been done, and it results in false alarms! All that cost—likely in the tens of thousands, because one guy forgot to flip a switch!

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsShutterstock

12. Strange Seatmate

I once sat beside a Scientologist who tried to convince me to go into business with him. He wouldn't explain what the business was.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsShutterstock

11. Nice Try, Buddy

An older man and his wife were in the row directly in front of me. I watched him unsuccessfully attempting to get some action with her, mid-flight. "Honey, I got the blanket in place."

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsShutterstock

10. Patriotic Plane Ride

Not really crazy, but when I was a flight attendant I saw some pretty awesome fireworks displays from the sky every July 4th. AMAZING!

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsPixabay

9. Business Class Or Nothing

I was waiting on a flight in Denver. A little old man gets on and is arguing with the flight attendants about how he's in "business class" and he paid for "business class.” This is a two class flight, first and coach, the flight attendant tries to explain to him, but he's having none of it. I figure he was probably connecting to an international flight that had three classes at the next airport but whatever.

He decides he's going to sit in first class anyway. So he gets into the last row in first class, squeezes all the way over to the window seat, and refuses to budge. After a lot of arguing with the flight attendants, the cops get called in. Meanwhile, the HUGE man (probably 6’8’’ tall) whose seat he was sitting on had arrived and was just laughing at the whole situation.

The best part was when the cops arrived and the huge man had to tell the cops, "Hey, it's not me.” The cops spend probably 20-30 minutes trying to talk the poor old guy into moving to his proper seat, but he's not budging and becoming more and more incoherent. So finally the cops have got to do something: they put on their rubber gloves, grab the guy, drag him out of the seat, and put him on the floor to cuff him.

The old guy is screaming and crying like someone’s killing him. Finally, they get him off the plane. The cops came back in to get everyone's contact info in case they needed them for a trial. The poor flight attendants had to clean the seats because the old guy had soiled himself when they were pulling him out of the seat.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsShutterstock

8. Cracker Ammunition

It was many, many years ago. I was probably in my early 20s and had the aisle seat. There was this cute woman who was about my age with a child, whom I would guess was about 3 years old. This was many years before the current level of security and paranoia on airplanes. The kid is in the center seat and a bit jumpy and fidgety.

No big deal. About an hour into the flight, the mother gives her kid a bag of animal crackers. When I say a bag, I do not mean a bag pulled out of a box of animal crackers or a bag you might buy rom the cookie aisle of a grocery store. No, this mom gave the kid a bag that looked like it came from a warehouse club.

The bag was almost as big as the kid and probably had 3 to 5 pounds of cookies in it. I continue minding my own business, thinking the kid will eat them and settle down. No, instead, the kid starts chucking them at people on the plane. He didn't throw them at anyone specifically but was rather tossing them a few aisles in front of us, beside us, behind us.

The entire time, the mother is sitting there smiling like their kid is the cutest thing ever. Well, it isn't long before people get pissed and call in the flight attendants. The flight attendants have words with the mother, telling her it isn't allowed. Of course, the mother has this hurt look in her eyes like she can't believe no one else found this adorable, and said that she will get the kid to stop.

Well, she doesn't tell the kid to stop and the kid doesn't stop. A few times, the kid turns and hits me in the head point blank. I ask the kid to please not do that. The flight attendants come a few more times and more words are spoken and still, nothing is done. Well, not that I would advocate this, but about the third or fourth time the kid hits me in the side of the head with an animal cracker, I grabbed the remainder of the bag, fold it over to close it, and put it underneath the seat in front of me.

I put my feet in front of it so no one could get them. I was beyond pissed at that point. Well, the mom gets pissed at me and tells me I can't do that. I simply reply that I did it. Some words are exchanged between her and I. I don't recall what, but I wasn't trying to be mean. The flight attendants get involved yet again with both of us, and suggest to the mother that putting the animal crackers away is a wonderful idea, didn't we both agree?

I gave back the package of crackers and by this point, people are voicing their approval around us. I got a few free drinks after that. I was young and didn't handle it in the best way, but something had to be done.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsMax Pixel

7. Hot Button Issue

This was kinda insane, kinda just annoying, but the "call" button above the seat behind me shorted out with 1.5 hours left in a flight. Ding, ding, ding, ding... for about an hour and a half. It was very, very annoying.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsWikimedia Commons Daniel Schwen

6. Eight-Legged Mishap

I saw a spider up above me on a long flight, which I thought was weird. I rolled up a magazine from in front of me, then wound up to hit it, and accidentally smoked this old lady in front of me. She went nuts and started screaming. No one believed me that there was a spider.

Twisted FactsPixabay

5. How Could You Not Know!

My husband was on a business flight from Vancouver to Tokyo a few years ago. They brought a young woman who was in medical distress up to business class across the aisle from him and called for any doctors on board to come forward. Long story short, she proceeded to give birth to an almost full-term baby. She claims she didn’t know she was pregnant—she didn’t look pregnant—and her boyfriend was totally freaking out. The baby was healthy in the end, so things worked out okay.

Fingers art of couple during quarrel. Concept the husband left his pregnant wife.GettyImages

4. Lost in Translation

I was on a flight from Manila to Singapore, sitting next to a teenage boy who clearly had never flown before. He didn't know how to work the seats, had trouble with the overhead lights, and couldn't fill out the immigration forms. He also did not speak English. I was trying to help him out as best I could, mostly motioning with my hands, as we didn’t speak the same language.

When we were descending, the pressure change was really bothering him. He had taken his pillow and the one from the empty seat between us and was jamming them against his ears trying to alleviate the pressure. I had gum with me, so I try to hand him a piece. He doesn't take it, so I say, "Have some gum, it will help with your ears,” while pointing to my ears.

He takes the foil-wrapped piece of gum, and proceeds to stick it directly in his ear.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsWikimedia Commons Lusheeta

3. Everyone’s Worst Nightmare

We were flying from San Francisco to Cincinnati. In the middle of the flight, the pilot requests for everyone to fasten their belts because they are expecting a bumpy ride. Apparently, there was a weather disturbance that had been reported. Just prior, he had casually announced that we were at 40,000 feet, due for the expected time, and so on.

After the announcement, we hear tons of these sort-of popping sounds, and we're all like WTF is going on? It got really bumpy... and it turns out, it was giant hailstorm hitting the plane. Then it got really bumpy. The pilot again announces more sternly for all crew to take their seats and for no one to get up. Now it was getting really really bumpy.

Then, it happened. We fell right out of the sky. There is no other way to describe it. It was like you were just sitting in a chair suspended from a rope at the top of a cherry picker and someone cut the rope. We dropped like crazy, and then WHAM. It was like the plane landed in an enormous vat of cream filling.

I don’t know how else to describe it—it was like, kind of soft, but still a big jolt. The jolt impacted on one wing more than the other, so the plane went askance and all sorts of luggage went flying out of the overhead compartments on the right side. They flew over to the left side, smacking a bunch of people in the head.

Some people who were not completely or at all buckled up—not the smartest folks—flew up and hit the ceiling, then fell back into their seats. There was screaming everywhere. Absolute chaos. Then, as if it couldn’t get any worse, the pilot screams over the intercom, "Denver, we're in serious trouble up here, I need…" and then a few other words we could not understand.

He freaked everyone out even more. He had forgotten to turn off the cabin speakers from the earlier announcement. It was super rough for a few moments, and then we drop like crazy again. The same thing as before, but a much harder landing. I mean, we dropped for what seemed like minutes but was probably only 10-15 seconds.

Wham! A much harder landing. More stuff went flying everywhere, more people were crying, praying, and screaming. It was nuts! We cruised through that, and it became smooth again. The pilot later announced he was sorry about the “mistaken” overhead announcement, and kind of downplayed that we were ever in any real danger.

He also said the current altitude was something like 18,000 feet. Whatever the exact numbers were, we had dropped about 10,000 feet, or 2 miles. It was the worst of the 500,000+ air miles I spent. You never heard so many people clapping upon landing.

Things Witnessed On A Flight FactsPxHere

2. She Wanted a Cool Cat

I travel quite a bit and have seen a few weird things, but on a recent trip from Vienna to Venice things were taken to a whole new level. We were about 20 minutes into the flight when I noticed that a woman sitting across from me had a Persian cat in one of those cat carrier bags. The plane was really warm and the cat was sitting in the bag panting.

Well, the lady decided to let the cat out of the bag to let it cool off a bit. After trying to shove the cat's face up into the air vents for a minute, the cat literally freaked out. It was clawing at everything, attaching itself to the seats in front, jumping around, hissing, you name it. The thing went nuts! Anyway, after about five minutes of more of the same, the cat completely lost it, tried to climb the seat in front and—wait for it—fell over dead!

We couldn't believe what had just happened. The owner was trying to shake the cat around a bit to wake it up, but it was a goner. For the duration of the flight, she just sat there holding her dead cat, and sobbing quite profusely. It was honestly really hard to watch.

Arya Stark factsPixabay

1. Accidental Hero

On a redeye flight, just as I fell asleep, a woman passed out in the middle of the aisle and hit my leg. I was so doped up on Dramamine, I didn't even realize it and fell back asleep. The flight attendants put an oxygen tank on the floor, and put the tank’s mask over her mouth. Apparently, they used my hand to hold it in place.

When I woke up a few minutes later, I was like, “Why am I holding an oxygen mask over someone's face?"

Lawyers Share “I Rest My Case” FactsShutterstock

 

Sources: Reddit, ,


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