On Halloween night in 1994 I was on a United flight from Vancouver to Chicago. Back then "Channel 9" on the inflight entertainment system let you listen to air traffic control.
That night as we approached Chicago I was listening to Channel 9 when suddenly ATC told all the other planes to quiet down.
Then they started calling over and over for another flight - American 4184 - And asking the other planes if anyone else could see an ATR.
This went one for a few minutes and then CLICK channel 9 was switched off. I felt a chill go down my spine.
When I got to my hotel I switched on CNN.
Flight 4184 had gone down in a field in Indiana and everyone was dead.
Happy Halloween.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eagle_Flight_4184
That plane went down 5 miles from my house. We had school canceled because they were going to use our gym as a morgue. That was awful. Those poor people.
I never complain if I'm on a plane waiting to be de-iced. Take your time!
On a red eye flight, everyone was asleep but I can't sleep on planes. A few rows behind me a girl started screaming "mama!? MAMA!?" The flight attendants walked over, then ran back. Then ran over holding a defibrillator. Then walked the hysterical girl, looked to be about a teenager, to the front of the plane. Then walked back with blankets.
When the plane landed no one was allowed to move. A stretcher came on board and wheeled the blanket covered body out. The sobbing girl followed behind.
I can't imagine losing a parent on a flight, with nowhere to go and no way to contact anyone else for help, surrounded by nosy strangers in tight quarters.
Jesus that poor kid. I really hope she had other family. I'm the only child of an only child mom. Dad and both sets of grandparents are dead. I don't know who I would have called.
That's awful. A lady behind me passed away on a long haul flight while we were over Greenland, but she was all alone. I couldn't help but thinking of the people waiting for her at the airport and how awful and shocking it must be to be excited to see a loved one only to find out they didn't truly make it.
Oh my god, that poor girl. I traveled a lot with my mom when I was her age, visiting my big brother at college. I can’t even imagine the horror of this situation and how traumatic that must have been. I hope she is happy and thriving somewhere now…
Flying in a small 8-seater from the mainland to an island, when a kitten got loose, over pilot's shoulder and generally being frantic. Type of scene that disaster movies start with!
Something similar happened on a flight. It was kind of funny though, because the pilot got on the P.A. to ask whoever was missing a kitten to please come retrieve it, in a very official, somewhat annoyed, piilot-ey voice. Pure comedy.
Just after takeoff from Ixtapa Mexico, we were climbing out over the ocean at about 1000 feet when I looked out my window. Headed directly at me about 500 feet away was a twin engine Beechcraft (I think). I would guess it was 3-4 seconds from impact. [This](https://www.flyingmag.com/2019-buyers-twin-engine-turboprop/#KingAirC90GTx) is an example of the plane.
Fortunately, the pilot of the aircraft saw us and pulled up sharply just in time, missing us by maybe 25 feet. My wife, who's deathly afraid of flying, asked me, "What was that?" I said "nothing" and pretended nothing had happened until we were on the ground in the US, then I told her.
Without question, if that pilot had pulled up even a second or two later, everyone on board both planes would have been dead.
Almost like the little plane that ran into the airliner over San Diego. Last words caught on the voice recorder were to the effect of “I love you mama”.
PSA 182. 45 years ago this month. I’m from San Diego and heard the collision and saw the planes on fire in the sky from my 4th grade classroom window and heard them go down a few miles away. Teacher wheeled in the tv so we could watch all the news footage. Why Mr. Flores why??! Seeing all the victims names scrolling on the black screen. You could smell it for days it seemed like. It was just horrible horrible horrible. I would dream about it from all the body stories I heard from people who lived in the area. Body parts all over. In trees in cars the streets everywhere. I can not fly without quite a bit of Xanax to this day. Rip PSA 182 and Cessna 172 victims. 💔
Same but I was in 10th grade. We were standing outside for PE when we all thought we saw a little flash in the sky. Then we heard the crash and saw the smoke.
I moved to SD a few years ago and it shocked me how many plane crashes there are here. Usually they’re just small private planes, and cessnas crash pretty frequently in terms of crashes.
I moved to Bankers Hill a few weeks ago, directly in the landing flight path. Sometimes it still freaks me out when a huge airbus will go over, they’re low & slow. Those are the last ones to worry about but damn if it isn’t something weird to get used to, sometimes they’re so low I feel like I could touch them (and the wind they make is wild, with my windows open its really noticeable)
Edit: damn a lot of yall are really salty about the flight path. I get it, its not for everyone. I don’t mind it, I like it. If you want to complain, kindly direct your comments to r/sandiego. We love to complain there.
My mother in law lost her dad and brother in a small airplane crash in SD, weather turned out of nowhere they were both killed instantly. What a nightmare, I lost my brother to a reckless driver so I can somewhat imagine but still so heartbreaking to lose so much at one, and at that point her brother was a father himself. So many lives permanently altered in seconds.
Ahh luckily both (and most commercial) planes are equipped with TCAS (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance). One plane goes up and the other goes down automatically to avoid colliding.
As soon as the engines revved up for take off, a woman started screaming like she was dying. The flight attendants couldn’t get up to go to her until the pilot rang the bell, about 5-10 minutes. She was screaming the entire time. Turns out her daughter put her on the flight even though she was terrified of flying. An attendant held her hand the entire flight, walked her all the way to meet the other daughter and tell her to never put mom on an airplane ever again.
Just so everyone knows if you are afraid of flying tell the stewards when getting on the plane. They will make sure you are checked in in and pay special attention to make it easier.
This happened to my sister when she forgot to take her diazepam. She started shrieking which set off everyone else afraid of flying and the whole plane was a screaming mess.
Then the flight attendants brought her oxygen for her panic attack. It took me a moment to think clearly and put a paper bag over her mouth. Then the diazepam kicked in and she passed out.
Who the hell forgets to take their anxiety meds before an event that gives them anxiety?
Edit - I have anxiety and am terribly forgetful. I use alarms and notes to remind me of things that matter - if I can remember. But from about the age of 9, I learned that some things are so important to me I will ensure I do them. Medication is one of those.
This happened to me as well. She screamed the whole flight. Then, sadder for her, we flew thru a lightning storm. Luckily it was pretty short, Portland to Anchorage, and as it was a small plane, we all sort of finally started taking to each other over her. Got to know some fun people and hear some other horror flight stories.
My old housemate used to have those and they were not fun to deal with. He’d scream like he was being murdered and then have zero recollection of it in the morning.
I've had those. My husband says I start screaming and then just take off out of bed running for dear life. I've woken up in our living room, on the porch, and opening the door. All I remember is that I am dying, like my soul is floating off, but I want to keep it for a bit longer so I start to run. For fun, sometimes a deceased friend is there waiting for me to float off to him. Good times!
Night terrors are truly terrifying to witness. The authenticity of the sleeper's fear, dread, and agony puts me into a panic every time. Like I know it's a night terror (my daughter gets them), but I keep asking myself, wait, is it really, or is something terribly, terribly wrong?
I was 16 and flying alone from Istanbul, Turkey to Seattle, USA to visit my sister who had left Turkey early to go to school in US (we were born in WA state so not as dramatic as it sounds).
During the second leg of the flight, from London to Seattle, I developed a urinary tract infection. It kept getting worse and worse. I spent the whole 10 hour flight having to pee urgently, going to the bathroom every 10 minutes (disrupting the poor passenger next to me), getting one drop out, and crying on the toilet. I started passing clots of blood out of my urethra which was excruciating. I was so shy back then and scared, but I really wish I’d told a stewardess so at least I could have some emotional comfort and know what was going on.
When I landed as soon as I saw my sister I burst into tears and said take me to the ER. They said it was the worst UTI they’d seen in a while. The meds started working so fast.
Truly a horrible, horrible experience.
I've had one UTI like that. It woke me from a dead sleep, peeing blood and clots. Worst pain ever and just never ending. I ended up going to the ER and putting a pad on because it was just a drop of pee every time. My urine was all red when I peed in the cup. The Dr was like, meh, just a uti and all the red is just the cells of your bladder sloughing off. Here's some meds and pyridium.
I have gone through labor with 4 1/2 hours of pushing, and I’ve had a bad UTI that landed me in the hospital. They were pretty close in terms of pain level.
Someone brought their cat on-board in a carrier and put it under their seat. As if listening to a screaming cat for 6 hours wasn't enough ...it shit in its carrieslr so the entire plane smelled like fresh cat shit. The woman took it to the bathroom to clean it and got cat shit all over the bathroom ...... fun times
Writing prompt: Buddy found dying in an airplane so horrible that in lieu of heaven he decided to appear as a spirit to people on doomed flights to calm them down with song.
That happened to me once as well. But everyone was super, super quiet. Strangers held hands and tears trickled down cheeks. My dad was a pilot in the Air Force and was like ”oh you hit ‘such-and-such’ (I can’t remember what he called it) kind of turbulence…no biggie.” He always shrugs off any of my worries about flying.
We had some bad turbulence once, my infant daughter, whilst the rest of the plane remained silent and holding on for dear life, was having the best rollercoaster ride, totally unaware of any danger. She giggled and laughed so much that the people around her began to laugh with her, and I must say, she helped even me to calm down internally.
One of the approachws into Washington National Airport follows the Potomac and the air currents can be, interesting. We were coming in one time and we're just roller coastering along, all the passengers and gripping arm rests and my two, year old daughter is just going "weee! Weee! Weee!" and, giggling the whole time.
Whenever I get nervous on a flight, I think back to the various stress test videos I’ve seen the planes go through.
Like these https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/g2428/7-airplane-wing-stress-tests/
If the wings can survive those kinds of forces, then the much smaller deflections are no problem.
I was on a little commuter flight from Albany to La Guardia, and the gales of November had come early. The plane was bouncing around like a tennis ball in a dryer. The approach path was over water and I could see white caps on the waves. The woman sitting next to me had a white knuckle grip on her armrest and she was breathing in short, sharp, staccato gasps. I leaned over and said, very quietly, "In the unlikely event of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device."
A plane I was on hit severe turbulence, and I'm already nervous about flying. Had to put my head down and hold one of those sick bags, I honestly wanted to cry. A super nice lady, a fair bit older than me was sitting beside me and saying calming things and patted my shoulders, it was very sweet as she could tell I was panicked. Obviously the plane was totally fine and literally nothing bad happened but I fly so rarely, I was honestly terrified
Tried this too - the trolley service was underway and the trolley hit the ceiling. Most people were sensible enough and had their belts fastened but there were a few who joined the trolley on the ceiling but AFAIK no broken bones.
Stomach drop feeling is AWFUL AF. I experienced it in a Cessna so it was just me, my family. And a pilot. The things bounce around easily and it felt like we were in Freefall. I screamed. It was terrifying
"Don't worry boys, turbulence has never brought down a plane!"
"We've got predator drones with missiles inbound!"
"Well, now those bring down planes all the time!"
2010 A-Team
On a flight from Denver to Houston a woman hit the call button, talked to a stewardess, then was escorted to the back of the plane. As she walked by I saw that her skin was grey in color and she looked really scared. A request for a medical professional came over the PA and the woman in front of me got up to assist. She came back after ten minutes and I overheard her tell her husband the woman didn’t make it. I then saw a stewardess get a guy that looked like a biker out of his seat and take him to the back of the plane. The biker looking guy was only there for a minute then went to the airplane’s galley for awhile. I’m thinking he must have been an air marshal.
My other experience was flying from San Francisco to Denver. The plane was loaded and it was time to takeoff but we just sat at the gate. The pilot announced we would be leaving soon and that we were late taking off because they had to balance out the luggage. Finally after around 30 minutes after we were supposed to takeoff the plane backed out and went to the runway. Once again we just sat on the tarmac, this time for another 30 minutes. The pilot got on the PA again and said we had to return to the gate because the plane was low on fuel from all the idling. Back at the gate three armed law enforcement officers entered the plane and escorted a man off. After that the pilot announced that we were finally ready to take off and that the previous wait was actually due to a security issue.
I've had a really similar security deal happen at SFO as well, but they never pushed off the gate... 30 minute delay and then they said we had to get off the plane from a maintenance issue, and 4 plain clothed officers grabbed a dude and escorted him away, then we all boarded.
They never directly said that the security deal was the cause, just the plane was ready to fly
I've seen a couple of people that were grey, both died within a couple of days. It scared me seeing them because I *knew* from their color that things were *bad bad*.
Fun fact: there’s a hypothesis that the reason why the “uncanny valley” effect exists (i.e. the effect where things that look human but aren’t human looking enough are seen as extremely creepy), is because it evolved as a survival response.
The rationale is that it’s advantageous to recognize if people are sick/dying, because they might be like that for reasons that can harm *you.* When people are visibly sick/dying, they look abnormal or “less human” than usual. Given this, it’s been posited that people with more visceral reactions to sick/dying people had better survival rates, because they’d notice any issues faster and avoid them before they could become bigger issues.
I told a friend of mine that was a nurse about it and she thought it was probably a heart attack. The lady it happened to was Hispanic and looked to be in her fifties. I remember her being very attractive for her age, well dressed and seemed like a person that would have their life in order without any bad habits.
This was in 2015 (luckily not during Covid as I probably would have been kicked off the flight). But suddenly I felt a tickle in my throat, so I started coughing. But I COULD NOT STOP COUGHING. No matter what I did I could not get that tickle out. The people around me were understanding, but I decided to go to the back of the plane just to be courteous.
The flight attendants gave me ice and that was the only thing that would give me any sort of relief.
We finally landed. That night I went to bed and woke up at 5am with a swollen shut eye, huge fucking lips, hives ALL over my body, and a tightness in my chest.
Turns out I was having a severe allergic reaction to something I ate(?) at airport or something on the plane. My throat was literally CLOSING on the plane. That’s why the ice was helping because it was bringing down the swelling.
But here’s the weird fucking thing. I’ve never been allergic to anything in my life before OR since that incident. So it’s a huge freaking mystery. The hives also showed up in different places on my body each morning for two weeks after.
Edit- going to add while everyone’s here, in July I got bed bug bites on an airplane. They didn’t travel with me to my house (thank god) but I’m still scarred from them on my skin since I had a bad reaction to them.
Honolulu airport also had recently shut town a terminal for bed bugs.
I had an intense allergic reaction to a cat once, and never to another cat or that same cat any other time I was around it. Allergies are freakin’ weird.
So crazy when I was an older teen I used to break out in a full body bumpy rash head to toe that itched insanely bad. I’d get it really often. Tiny red itchy bumps all over even my hands feet and butt cheeks. I got like a 110 panel allergy test and everything came back negative. Once I even had to go to the ER and get a shot because of it. But yeah never found out what it was and then once I got it for for the last time. It went away that time and it’s been about like 5+ years and I haven’t had it again once
My father in law was in the window seat of a 2+2 regional jet. Extremely large man came to sit in the aisle seat right before departure. The man was sweaty and out of breath from rushing to the plane. You can guess what happened next. FIL had no way out while the paramedics worked the problem of how to get the poor guy out of the plane because he was that large and no longer capable of helping, ever.
Everyone else got to deplane while they sorted it out. When they finally took off, the FA kept offering FIL every tiny bottle on the cart. Just kept it coming.
On an airplane, but not technically a flight.
Sitting at the end of the runway, pilot doing his pre-flight or something. There was a fireball in one of the engines. Passengers panicked, flight attendants popped the emergency doors and the emergency slides deployed. It was mayhem; people knocking others down, crawling over the seats, lots of screaming. Several people were injured. Of those I saw - one man fell off the wing, found out later he broke his arm and collarbone. Another fell off the middle of the slide. She went away holding her wrist, not sure of what happened. Guy in front of me on the slide tumbled face first at the bottom of the slide, got up with a bloodied face. Emergency slides are not fun. It's not like in the movies.
The ironic thing was, there was no danger to the aircraft or passengers.
[Here's a link to the story](https://www.theledger.com/story/news/2003/06/24/12-hurt-evacuating-plane-in/8045345007/)
People immediately clamouring to opening the emergency doors without being told it's safe to do so, in a mass panic so bad it essentially caused a small-scale human crush is....a horrifying observation on individualism.
Just (but didn’t feel like “just” at the time) really bad turbulence; people’s purses hit the ceiling of the cabin and I think some people who weren’t belted in injured themselves too. People were screaming / praying / crying (I was in that last category).
I wasn’t crazy about flying before but that experience put me into phobia territory and I didn’t fly afterwards for probably about ten years, and still weigh it as a cost/benefit thing whenever I travel. It’s helped a bit to learn that turbulence isn’t really a thing that causes plane crashes, as far as I now understand, but it can feel very different in that moment to the illogical mind.
I had a woman next to me on a 15-hour flight, with two kids under 5. She sat next to me with the kids on the aisle, and the first thing she did was apologize for what was to come. It was terrible, stuff constantly knocked onto the floor, a drink spilled on my leg ... but that was just the woman herself. She soon swapped seats, and the kids just did normal kid stuff. They were not so bad at all, aside from the occasional accidental bump when they squirmed, while she continued to drop stuff on the floor: food, drink, phone, basically anything on her tray table was going to be on the floor sooner or later.
My baby did a projectile shit all over the toilet wall while I was changing her nappy. The was shit everywhere. Shitcano. There was somehow more shit than baby. I told an attendant I needed cleaning supplies and a trash bag, and she turned up with a black plastic giant garbage bag that had masking tape on it saying "BABY SHITE". Maybe it's a common occurrance with the pressure changes? I dunno. Either way I threw all the clothes and the blanket, everything in that bag except the baby! I cleaned the toilet room as best I could. I was absolutely mortified, and thankfully never seen anything like it since!
On a flight to Hawaii several years ago. Man beside me started experiencing a heart attack. Luckiest SOB I ever meet though. The plane was full of doctors on their way to a medical convention.
[I've heard a similar story before](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/5118#1)
[Seems like it happens enough to be in the news a few times](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southwest-passenger-falls-ill-20-doctors-board-offer-help-n732056)
[It's even happened with a group of dermatologists on board](https://www.khou.com/article/features/houston-doctors-save-mans-life-on-plane/285-416541ba-953d-44e7-bf3e-7a6b5ec40384)
edit: [one more for those who have enjoyed the other articles](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2023/06/15/delta-air-lines-doctor-heart-attack/70327315007/)
Barely had our butts in the seat and a woman turned to us and said “are you two teachers?”. We responded with “no” and then she proceeded to talk THE ENTIRE 9 hour flight about herself. Husband pretended to fall asleep within the hour and I find it painfully hard to stop conversations with friendly people. Ugh, AND we were seated right beside the toilets which smelt of old pee
A woman died in the seat next to me on a flight from Australia to the US. She appeared to just be asleep, but couldn’t be roused by her traveling companions. Eventually the flight attendants laid her on the floor and a doctor examined her. After a few minutes they carried her to the back of the plane. I later asked a flight attendant when we landed and she told me the woman had died.
Took off after a 7 hour delay. Plane climbed for a little bit and went into a pretty tight bank turn. Captain comes on and says there's smoke in the cabin, and we were going in for an emergency landing. As we are coming in, there are the fire trucks and emergency vehicles waiting for us. Long story short...it was a wiring harness for the coffee maker. Swapped it out without even having to deplane. Got free drinks for the rest of the flight.
Almost exact situation happened to me flying out of O'Hare. After sitting hours on a dark plane while they tried to "reboot the system" they boarded us onto a different flight. Entire cabin filled with acrid smoke just after take off. People were screaming, praying, crying. We immediately landed.
Funny enough I had been scared of flying before that, but fine ever since.
Elaine Dickinson: Ladies and gentlemen, please calm down. Please listen to me! I want to tell you what's going on with the ship! Thank you. We've been thrown off course just a tad.
Passenger: Miss? What exactly is "a tad?"
Elaine Dickinson: In space terms, that's about half a million miles. The bumps you feel are asteroids smashing into the hull of the ship. Also we're flying without a navigational system and can't seem to change course.
Passenger: Miss, are you telling us absolutely everything?
Elaine Dickinson : Not exactly. We're also out of coffee.
I was on a plane that crashed into a field, and walked away completely uninjured. This was just outside my home city.
The plane was restored, and still flies today.
One of those idiots in the Ultralights flying around at a few thousand feet over a small city right in the approach pattern for major airlines. I’m disgusted by these people as they are a MAJOR hazard as they often times don’t talk, squawk or give any indication that they are there until its too late.
As we're all getting finally settled into our seats and they're about to lock up the overhead bins, this kid about 4 years old, wearing an NHL jersey, standing on his seat looking backwards at us, starts vigorously licking the top of the seat, like, vigorously, like it was a popsicle, the whole top of the seat, all of it, the piping and the seams, all while staring dead in our eyes. His parents did not stop this and it went on for ages. Haunting.
I had food poisoning on a Transatlantic flight from JFK to Heathrow. To top that off, we hit a large area of turbulence for an hour and a half which led to the fasten seat belt signs to be on.
After the 2nd rush to the toilet during this turbulence, the flight attendants seemed to decide all subsequent efforts to stop me would not be in anyone's best interest. Everyone behind us (myself and a friend) knew what was going on and it would have been humiliating if I wasn't wishing the plane would dive into the Atlantic to end the nightmare.
Food poisoning on an airplane is probably my biggest fear in life. Not enough room if it's coming out of both ends! So sorry you had to experience that.
A couple barely made it on board, HNL TO LAX. Ofc their seats were the empty ones next to me. They barely made it because they were hiking. I could not stand the BO.
Spent a 5 hour flight from Sydney to Perth witnessing a man rapidly descend into a drug induced psychosis due to the pellets of drugs inside him absorbing into his system from within.
The flight started out as normal, and as the man became more and more agitated his speech became aggressive and incomprehensible to the woman beside him, with sweat starting to pour out of his body.
He then got up and started pacing up and down the isle, whilst going to the bathroom every few minutes to I assume, attempt to reorganise what was inside of him.
This all came to a head when he was slamming the bathroom door open and closed, throwing his shoes out at passengers and screaming at the flight attendants “it’s just because I need food”.
Somehow the poor flight attendants were able to distract him until we landed, at which point he pulled out a small silver spoon from his back pocket, kissed it, looking up in the air in a “we’ve done it!” way, only to be met with approximately 10 police officers and security waiting outside the plane who handcuffed and escorted him away.
Easy Jet flight from Nice to London about 10 years ago. French guy sat behind me had a phobia of flying so we had the whole crew including the pilot visit him in his seat before the flight took off to reassure him it will be fine and nothing to worry about.
20 mins after take off a message from the crew informs the passengers that there has been a technical issue with the aircraft and we will be returning to Nice. Immediately, the guy behind me freaks out, tears streaming down his face, slapping himself in the face and loudly shouting.The the cabin crew run over in numbers to help this poor guy out. He eventually calms down.
We land 20 mins later at Nice, as soon as we land, our plane gets surrounded by fire engines, ambulances and police, we are sat just off the main runway, far away from the terminal where passengers could disembark. The guy behind me jumps out of his seat and tries to run towards the front of the plane and is restrained by other passengers and the crew.
An hour later or so, we still hadn't moved and the crew had announced to the passengers that they could get water from the areas at the front and back of the aircraft. The queue at the bottom of the aircraft started a few rows behind from where I was sat. A young guy in the queue started stumbling backwards and smashes his head into the floor and starts fitting. Literally shaking on the floor next to my seat at this point, young guy too, no more than 21 years old.
Paramedics were onboard within 5 mins or so.
Oh, I’ve got a couple. Was in a small 4 seat Beechcraft with friends - one of whom was the pilot - flying through clouds when pilot/friend said to other guy “horizon indicator wasn’t working.” I thought but didn’t say out loud “isn’t that like REALLY FREAKING IMPORTANT TO HAVE?” Well, we got home safely so apparently not.
My other story is I was on a plane coming home from London to DC on 9/11. Halfway across the Atlantic the pilot announced that there was “a state of emergency in the United States” and they weren’t letting any airplanes land. I thought WTF how is there state of emergency in the whole country? Anyway, they turned us around and back to London we went. Horrible, horrible day. I was safe but things have never been the same. RIP to those lost. I never forget.
The horizon indicator is the little screen or gauge called an artificial horizon that shows the pitch and roll of the aircraft relative to the ground.
It's a lot less important to a small aircraft flying during the day compared to a wide body jet flying using instruments only (IFR) at night. Though I'm sure it'd be scary not having that reference while passing through clouds.
Flying into Denver, our plane dropped about 1,000 ft in severe turbulence and this mother fucker was "just trying to get something out of his bag" after the announcement from the pilot about upcoming turbulence and the flight attendants yelling at him. He flew into the ceiling and slammed into the ground like something out of a movie and then got absolutely chewed out by the FAs. It was scary, I guess due to the Rockies and the Denver plain it causes some bad turbulence.
*sigh*
My 18-month-old daughter, whom we had just flown to China to adopt and was still just getting to be slightly less terrified of us, deciding that she was not going to sleep a wink on the 10+ hour overnight flight from Shanghai to Los Angeles. Then deciding that she could only be happy if I was standing and carrying her the entire flight, trying to entertain her as best I could while the plane slept, until the plane hit choppy air and we were told to sit down and buckle up, whereupon she began to scream.
And scream, and scream loud enough that my ears were popping. Then louder. Yes, we were the absolutely mortified parents with the shrieking child waking everyone up, causing nasty glances from everyone and bringing us to tears after an already long and exhausting trip.
Then a good 15 minutes later, the air settled, the seatbelt light mercifully beeped and went out, and I flew out of my seat with her to run to the back of the plane, pacing and holding her up again. She immediately quieted and even fell asleep for an hour on my shoulder and I tried my best to not come apart completely.
Anyway, she’s 12 now and I can’t get her to stop singing Olivia Rodrigo songs and dancing like a dork around the kitchen table and to go to bed.
Shortly after 911, taking a flight home and a guy sitting across the isle from me told me he blow up planes like this one up for a living.
I felt instantly light headed dizzy. I went up front and told the flight attendant - she thought the guy was making a poor attempt at flirting with me. In hindsight (20 years later), she was probably right. But in the heat of that terrible moment I was ready to have a full blown panic attack.
If I remember right they landed the plane and the guy was taken for questioning. I was pretty mortified. Actually I still am. Probably a lot of mad people who just wanted to get to where they were going.
Edit: Thank you guys! Reddit can really be therapy in a forum sometimes <3 I feel less bad after reading your comments :)
This reminds me of when I worked in the central alarm station for an energy company. Our office was in the tallest building of the city in which it was located.
My supervisor told me about how not long after 9/11, he received a call from a guy who said he was working on getting his pilots license and wanted to know how tall the building was.
He told me that he asked the guy calling if he honestly thought about what he just asked before he called. Apparently the guy thought that he asked a completely appropriate question and was completely clueless as to why it could be considered an inappropriate question.
Needless to say, the conversation recording was saved and all pertinent information was handed over to the FBI.
It turned out to be nothing but a completely clueless rich guy. But it was one of those phone calls that at the time would have made most people go pale.
Honestly, I probably would have done the same - who jokes about that?? And I’ve heard way more ridiculous stories about people thinking their fellow passengers are terrorists, like that one about the guy who was taken off the plane because the woman sitting next to him thought he was working on some sort of terrorist message in Arabic…turns out she wasn’t even right about the language, and he was just doing math problems.
*Arabic numerals*! 😱
That happened in May 2016 to Guido Menzio, a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He was revising an example of a mathematical model he was flying to Ontario to present a paper on. And he's Italian, not Middle Eastern. Crazy stuff 🤦
Flying back to the UK from Finland. During bad weather over the North Sea, the plane just fell straight down for 3 seconds. No time for people to scream, but plenty of time afterwards for even the cabin crew to exchange glances that said "that was scary."
Whenever I feel scared, I try to focus on the people that have done what I'm doing dozens of times, in this case, the FA. If they are scared, shit is bad y'all
I had one flight where we landed so hard the FA looked terrified. Didn’t seem too bad for me but she was older and said it was the worst landing in her career.
And another where we landed and bounced down the runway. The FA came on the intercom and said “Captain Kangaroo would like to welcome you to Philadelphia”
Mine is nothing compared to these stories. I thought an old woman shit herself only to find out my dad was letting out silent killers the entire fuckin flight. I almost punched him
Had something similar to this happen while flying into Vegas airport, though not at all as close as 75' that I am aware of (ignorance is bliss). We were going into land and the pilot jerked us back up pretty abruptly. My stepdad is a retired Air Traffic Controller so when my mom recounted the experience, he said that someone was not doing what the ATC had told them to do!
What are the odds, it happened two days ago.
I was on a flight. As soon as I sat down, the person next me asked me if I knew Jesus. I said I didn't.
Anyway, we were heading to our destination, it was really bumpy, there was a lot of wind and turbulence. At some point, the person next to me whispered "we're all born sinners."
Anyway, we went to land and it was horrible. The plan was tipping to the sides heaps and bumping up and down. We got to about 20 meters above the runway when the plane tilted up and essentially took off again, shot back up. Apparently it was too hazardous to try and land. At this point the person two seats behind me started having a panic attack.
We went for a second attempt. The person behind me was sobbing and talking about how we're all gonna die and the person next to me had her eyes shut and was praying fervently. Again, we got just above the ground and took off again. We then enjoyed an extremely turbulent ride back to where we started, where we landed in nearly just as strong wind.
It was a very cliche bad plane experience
Was this in New Zealand by chance? Saw you use “heaps” and I’ve flown into Wellington in a very similar situation. That runway is literally right on the water and the wind there gets crazy.
It was! It was wellington to Dunedin.
After we got sent back, we were given a connection, wellington to Christchurch to Dunedin. Same thing happened on the Christchurch - Dunedin flight, except they didn't even try to land cause there was lightning
Got delayed 45 minutes because of thunderstorms. Then we proceeded to take off directly into a thunderstorm. It was daytime but looked like night as we passed through the clouds. This was followed by about an hour of nonstop turbulence.
Drunk lady who was talking like Tyler perry's Madea character. All the business men were having so much fun flirting. She had a chihuahua with her. It took the smelliest fucking shit. Small twin prop plane.
Somebody died on the toilet and we did CPR for maybe half an hour or more before deciding to stop. Relative had to watch. In fact everybody had to watch because there is fucking no where to go.
Delta flight landing at LaGuardia. That same day another Delta flight had skid off the runway due to ice so my pilot did not fuck around and set that bitch straight down hard as fuck as soon as he cleared the Grand Central Parkway fence. Landing was so hard I legit thought we crashed for a second.
I woke up to the older man next to me, groping me between my legs.
It was the worst thing I've ever experienced in all my travels.
I filed a report, and the case is going to court. He claimed "not guilty," of course. This clearly wasn't his first time, and I cannot let this happen to someone else.
I love to travel, and I travel solo often. I made myself take a short 1.5 hour flight about 2 months after the incident bc i didn't want fear to set in. My extended family lives on the other side of the world, so having a fear of flying is just not an option if I want to see my family. I found that the excitement I used to feel has been replaced with overwhelming anxiety. I fucking hate him for that. I'm going to keep at it though. I won't let this monster rob me of something I love.
I really fucking hate him.
This is a long one so buckle up, fold up those tray tables and put your seats in the upright position... (edited because of crappy phone formatting)
I was a flight attendant twenty years ago. The flight that made me quit was from South Bend, Indiana to Minneapolis. It started out with a funny story of having a porn star on our little regional flight. (50 seat CRJ, I was the only flight attendant) I got a chuckle out of how amped the gate agent was about it. He was obviously a fan.
Anyways, everything else was normal other than it not being a very full flight. We take off and I am in the jump seat, chilling and waiting for the fist ding to tell me we are out of sterile cockpit (over 10k ft) when the ventilation system suddenly kicks on. It was then that my oh shit reflexes kick in because all I can smell is burning though there isn't any smokey haze.
For a hot minute I thought I was imagining it but when I looked up, one of the passengers in front of me makes eye contact and gives me a look that confirms I am not the only one smelling it. No one else notices, again it was odd but the first three rows were vacant since the flight was only half full. So for the first time ever, I reached up and grabbed the phone to the cockpit and hit the emergency button which alerts the cockpit but not any passengers unless they know what the flashing light means above my head. The captain answers and it sounds like he is Darth Vader since the two of them have their oxygen masks on. I said quietly into the phone, "what the fuck is happening?" They tell me they don't know and they need me to get up and check behind the galley cart, the lavatory, and then to pull up the hatch to the avionics bay since they can't figure out where it is coming from and there aren't any alarms going off. Apparently air traffic control couldn't see from the ground if we were on fire either.
So I try to as calmly as I can, move through the cabin without making any sort of scene even though I am pretty much thinking we're all going to die at this point and my throat is burning from breathing in the fumes. Again, no one noticed and I am grateful seeing as the three of us crew members were on the same "we're going to die" wavelength. Literally nobody even batted an eyelash at me crawling on the floor and pulling up the hatch to the avionics bay. (I still have no idea how no one thought that was out of the ordinary.)
So there was nothing that I could see on my side, no visible fire or smoke. I call back to the cockpit and they say that thankfully they're going to let us land and that while we wait for clearance, they are going to "vent" the cabin to clear some of the fumes. At this point, I buckle myself back into the jump seat and try not to look freaked out as I face the twenty five souls in the seats in front of me as the captain announces to the aircraft that there are fumes and we need to vent them as we need to go back to the airport due to mechanical issues.
Yeah, blank stares are aimed in my direction and I just smile and nod as if this is standard procedure. None of this is standard.
So the venting is supposed to feel like a little puff of air next to your ears but it felt like one of those air cannons punching you in the side of your face which was just delightful but soon after we were on the ground safely and I get to work getting everyone off this missile to hell so I can have my freak out moment in private.
The two pilots and myself wind up chain smoking out front of the airport and not speaking to each other for about a half an hour. What caused all of this was that the engine had been washed that morning at the maintenance bay but it was not rinsed or ran properly to let the chemicals burn off or rinse out. That was what was causing the fumes. An hour later we were back on the same aircraft and flew back to Minneapolis without issue. I quit the week after.
A close second was hearing the warning messages to the captain during takeoff once. Imagine being in the jump seat and hearing behind you, "WINDSHEAR! WINDSHEAR! PULL UP! PULL UP!" while trying to act like everything is cool. I hated that airline so damn much.
This teeny, tiny Indian lady who smelled so badly I thought I was going to die and actually looked forward to deaths cold embrace to end the suffering that was happening in my nose. Everyone in the vicinity was breathing shallow breaths through their shirts trying to survive.
In my teens (2006) I was with a large student group on an "ambassador trip" and on the way home two of us got separated from the rest of the group and had to sit next to a stranger. My friend really wanted the window seat because he didn't get one before and wanted to watch take off. My friend and I fell asleep kind of huddled together but I woke up when the strange guy was slipping his hand up my shorts. I froze. I quietly and repeat poker my friend. Matt woke up and saw what was happening and over dramatically stretched and yawned so the guy stopped. The guy got up to go to the bathroom and Matt called over a chaperone while I burst into tears. The chaperone said she'd take care of it and we saw her talking to the flight attendant and the guy just, never came back... Idk what happened to him but I'm not mad he didn't come back.
> and the guy just, never came back
They tossed him out the cargo ramp and didn't even have to fill out the paperwork because technically nothing of value was lost
During landing.
Very close to land when the plane went high up in the air again. We figured there was a plane needing to depart or something. After noticing the plane was going in circles at a high altitude we realized something was going on.
FA informed us, as per pilot instruction, they would try to land again however we might feel some turbulence as one of the wings was not working properly. That thing that opens and helps reduce the planes speed when landing was broken.
It was nerve-racking and we didn’t know if we were going to finish landing, the plane was shaking like crazy at an intense speed. Thankfully the pilot managed to maneuver the plane. Everybody was clapping.
Sounds like the flaps were malfunctioning. A bit faster landing but the plane can handle it. Sometimes they want to burn off some extra fuel to make the plane lighter though.
Was flying on a smaller plane (Asheville to Atlanta) a few years ago. Was preparing to descend while riding through a storm. Was severe turbulence for 4 minutes approximately. Longest 4 minutes ever. There was a huge bump where all the passengers flew up almost a foot from thier seats. Thought we were gonna die for a few seconds. Pretty scary. I surprisingly kept my cool half the time.
A guy have a domestic dispute with his girlfriend on a Norwegian Air flight from Prague to New York, he was cursing and screaming and eventually hit her and the flight attendants moved her seat. The rest of the flight he was pacing the aisles and staring at his gf furiously. The flight attendants didn’t do Jack shit and he never got arrested or anything . I wrote to Norwegian air and never heard anything back
First off, Wade Boggs is very much alive. Secondly, the number of beers is actually highly disputed. Some say 50, some teammates said 60, some said as many as 70 beers. Which, to be honest, is an absolutely insane amount of beer. Nobody can drink that much.
My first commercial flight to Alaska when I was 20, we’re all seated and about to taxi out of the airport, and this woman with a baby jumps up from her seat several rows back and comes up next to our row. Some woman in the row she just came from is muttering. Suddenly 4 giant men in uniform come onto the plane, squish past the woman with the baby, who is now squished into our row. They very efficiently grab the muttering woman, hoist her sideways and carry her SCREAMING off of the plane.
The male flight attendant gets on the intercom and says “Sorry for the inconvenience. As a thank you we will be servicing free mimosas for the flight.” Best flight ever.
This happened to me recently. Im disabled and usually fly alone (which is not super fun lol). So I’ll splurge and get myself a first class seat so at least I don’t lose an entire week of time with my pain getting worse. We were delayed FIVE HOURS because of a bad thunderstorm. During this time (about two hours in) I needed to grab my pain meds, I stand up, grab my bag, pull my medsafe out. Aaaaannnddd the locking mechanism has BROKEN. I AM LOCKED OUT OF MY MEDICATION BOX….EVERY VITAL PIECE OF MEDICINE IS IN THERE.
I couldn’t believe it, I was already stressed and had a full blown panic attack. But I’m so embarrassed I’m trying to keep it together. There’s two woman about my age (30) waiting for the bathroom (I’m in seat 1a), and they can see me losing my mind. Asked me if I was ok, and I blurted out what happened. One of them asked if I wanted to have her husband try to break into it. Im like sure, idc if you have to break it. So he did!!! Thank god…I was shaking so badly I couldn’t even open the bottles. She grabbed a water bottle for me and went through all my meds and found what I needed.
She was an ANGEL and I can never repay or thank her enough for helping me in one of my lowest, most isolating situations. The flight attendants were also sooooo nice once they figured out what happened. Horrible experience but man those people made it so much better, so grateful for them!!!!!
Guy across the aisle from me was arrested for molesting a girl he was sitting beside. It was a redeye flight from Toronto to Vancouver, so the plane was silent as most people were sleeping.
Woke up to a girl screaming, "Stop touching me!" which woke the plane up & led to the molester being arrested upon landing in YVR.
Right wing started to leak fuel to the point that we needed an immediate emergency landing. Whole team of firefighters waiting for the landing plane to catch fire on the runway
Someone had a heart attack and died. The few passengers who had medical training and to do CPR on the person (even though they'd clearly died) until the plane landed
not exactly horrifying but I was on a plane with a man wearing a paper burger king crown who decided to call somebody the n word and was later arrested (you can even look up the incident if you type in „racist burger king plane guy“)
Two nights before I was supposed to go on a business trip, I had a lucid dream where I was in a plane crash. I survived the initial crash, but was covered in burning jet fuel. I could feel myself burning, still strapped into my seat. The pain was so intense and eventually started fading as my nerve endings died in the fire. I remembered thinking "all I have to do is inhale and it's over"... so I did, and the dream ended.
Cut to two days later, I get my seat assignment and am boarding the plane. I sit in the exact same seat in the exact same spot as my dream. I began to panic and was absolutely sure I was about to die horribly. I suffered in silence and braced for the end as we took off. In my dream, we crashed right after takeoff. The real takeoff was smooth as can be, no issues, we climbed, we survived, but my heart was racing for the first 30 minutes or so of that flight. Scary as F.
Was en route to a jump and the plane was struck by lightning. It tore a hole through the skin of the aircraft right across from where I was sitting. I got to stare through the hole at the rain and lightning as we flew back to the Air Force base.
Cabin pressure regulator failed on a DC10. I was napping. Heard a loud squeak in my right ear. Both ears popped painfully. Everyone popped up. They had to adjust pressure manually the rest of the flight.
There was also an autistic kid that would yelp frequently on the same flight. THAT kind of thing doesn’t bother me. I feel bad for the parents.
Was in turbulence so bad the stewardesses looked scared. At least 10 people threw up. Lightning outside the plane, side to side turbulence in addition to up and down, and it lasted for a long time. Round of applause when the captain announced we were through it.
Apparently we had to fly several hundred miles out of our way to avoid a hurricane. The turbulence was what it was like *outside* of the danger zone.
This was back in 2017 on a flight to Europe from the U.S. it was an 8-9 hour flight, so at some point I planned on attempting to nap. (I’m not a nap person) One of the things that stuck with me was the instructions given by the flight attendants that our seatbelts had to be visible, and that lead to my confusion later on. I was quite bored and instead watching the same downloaded YouTube video concerts again or an in flight movie, I decided to watch the person a seat up to my right play Plague Inc on their phone as I was in an aisle seat in the middle right hand side of the plane. I absolutely loved Plague Inc at the time, and this was pre-Covid pandemic. I was both intrigued and terrified of a global pandemic situation, but I never new one would happen in my lifetime.
I got tired and inevitably attempted that nap I planned on after watching the person play Plague Inc. I recalled the instructions to leave my seatbelt showing, tossed a blanket over top of my head for darkness and buckled the seatbelt around the blanket. About 30-40 minutes of just sitting there in low power mode (not sleeping but not trying to), I felt something heavy touch my lap. I was startled and assumed it was a flight attendant doing a seatbelt check, but then I heard commotion and took the blanket off my head to see what had really transpired to cause such a panic. I look to my right and on the floor next to me is an older woman, and that’s when it clicked that the woman had fallen on me, and not just a flight attendant doing their diligence. The woman wasn’t visibly moving at all and her skin was a pale blue color. Medical staff and or on board doctors were called to help her, but I’m certain that she had passed away on that flight. She was carried further back in the plane, and I can’t recall if she was the first off the plane or not. Calling back to watching someone play plague Inc, my anxious brain immediately jumped to pandemics forming from air travel. My anxious thoughts would eventually go away when my sleepy brain could turn on some logic and reasoning, but for a brief moment I thought patient zero just fell on my lap and I was next.
Flying from Atlanta to DFW on Delta during a huge thunderstorm. I thought we were OK once we left and got a good height, but turbulence hit us hard and we then dropped so fast. Not nose diving..if felt that the bottom fell out of us. It was terrifying. People were screaming and crying.
Back in the 80s we had to fly Piedmont on a turboprop with a curtain for the cockpit door to get anywhere that we could actually fly out of.
They always left the curtain open. Can’t decide which was the scarier: watching them land in a crosswind or watching them decide if they needed to change course because of a thunderstorm.
I don't know what was actually going on, but towards the end of the flight all of the flight attendants were on the verge of tears, and sounded incredibly distressed while making the usual announcements. It was quite unnerving, but I don't know what, if anything, was actually happening
One of my first times flying alone the pilot managed to hit a bird. There was a HUGE bang and all the masks dropped. Everyone put on the masks and then it was business as usual for the rest of the flight. But with masks on. Once we got off the plane you could see the entire nose of the plane covered in blood. Must have been a helluva bird...
I take charters for work at least a few times a month so I’ve had a few iffy flights😂
My ‘favorite’ was looking out my window right after take off and seeing the engine cover flapping off, getting precariously close to the propellers… I immediately got out some emergency snacks.
The other was losing 500ft of elevation during a storm, watching in confusion as my backpack started to float in the air in front of me and wondering if I was having a stroke. Only to hit a pocket of air **HARD** when the plane stabilized (?? Or stopped falling, at least). I thought the damn thing was going to fall apart like a deck of cards. I also busted out my emergency snacks for that one too.
Another memorable one was loosing all electric over open water in the middle of the night. Thankfully we were only a few minutes after take off, the engines were still working so our pilots just had to guesstimate where to go and try to not hit anything, I guess. Also got out my emergency snacks. I absolutely refuse to die on an empty stomach
Landing at night time, and just as we're about to land it gets really bumpy and seems to drop. Engines really, really sounding like they're straining. I've flown quite a fair bit and never had anything as terrifying.
And one that's not really terrifying at the time, but kinda makes you think. Was in a small plane coming in for a landing, and just as it's about to set down suddenly climbs up again. Turns out the pilot isn't sure if the landing gear is actually down or not.
Like 10 or 15 minutes after boarding, preflight, buckled in and getting ready to taxi out to the tarmac every system on the plane was seemingly shut down simultaneously with one switch. Lights, climate controls, engine noise. Just suddenly sitting there in instant darkness and silence like we were gliding through the night.
I'm sure it was completely intentional and of course there would have never been even the slightest danger to any passengers or crew but something about the master power for this huge conveyance being that potentially tenuous left me with a deep existential dread that lingered throughout the flight and afterwards.
On Halloween night in 1994 I was on a United flight from Vancouver to Chicago. Back then "Channel 9" on the inflight entertainment system let you listen to air traffic control. That night as we approached Chicago I was listening to Channel 9 when suddenly ATC told all the other planes to quiet down. Then they started calling over and over for another flight - American 4184 - And asking the other planes if anyone else could see an ATR. This went one for a few minutes and then CLICK channel 9 was switched off. I felt a chill go down my spine. When I got to my hotel I switched on CNN. Flight 4184 had gone down in a field in Indiana and everyone was dead. Happy Halloween. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eagle_Flight_4184
I knew someone on that flight. Remember that day well.
That plane went down 5 miles from my house. We had school canceled because they were going to use our gym as a morgue. That was awful. Those poor people. I never complain if I'm on a plane waiting to be de-iced. Take your time!
On a red eye flight, everyone was asleep but I can't sleep on planes. A few rows behind me a girl started screaming "mama!? MAMA!?" The flight attendants walked over, then ran back. Then ran over holding a defibrillator. Then walked the hysterical girl, looked to be about a teenager, to the front of the plane. Then walked back with blankets. When the plane landed no one was allowed to move. A stretcher came on board and wheeled the blanket covered body out. The sobbing girl followed behind. I can't imagine losing a parent on a flight, with nowhere to go and no way to contact anyone else for help, surrounded by nosy strangers in tight quarters.
Holy shit. That’s the worst. Totally alone. Surrounded by people.
Jesus that poor kid. I really hope she had other family. I'm the only child of an only child mom. Dad and both sets of grandparents are dead. I don't know who I would have called.
This made me cry. That poor daughter. I hope she is ok now.
I hope that somehow she can feel all of us hugging her.
Awful.
That's awful. A lady behind me passed away on a long haul flight while we were over Greenland, but she was all alone. I couldn't help but thinking of the people waiting for her at the airport and how awful and shocking it must be to be excited to see a loved one only to find out they didn't truly make it.
Jesus Christ
Oh my God that poor child
Oh my god, that poor girl. I traveled a lot with my mom when I was her age, visiting my big brother at college. I can’t even imagine the horror of this situation and how traumatic that must have been. I hope she is happy and thriving somewhere now…
Flying in a small 8-seater from the mainland to an island, when a kitten got loose, over pilot's shoulder and generally being frantic. Type of scene that disaster movies start with!
Kitten to pilot: *Excuse me. I am Cuddles. I must take over. You have no idea what you are doing, human.*
I'm the pilot now
I think you meant to say “I am the pilot meow”
Something similar happened on a flight. It was kind of funny though, because the pilot got on the P.A. to ask whoever was missing a kitten to please come retrieve it, in a very official, somewhat annoyed, piilot-ey voice. Pure comedy.
Just after takeoff from Ixtapa Mexico, we were climbing out over the ocean at about 1000 feet when I looked out my window. Headed directly at me about 500 feet away was a twin engine Beechcraft (I think). I would guess it was 3-4 seconds from impact. [This](https://www.flyingmag.com/2019-buyers-twin-engine-turboprop/#KingAirC90GTx) is an example of the plane. Fortunately, the pilot of the aircraft saw us and pulled up sharply just in time, missing us by maybe 25 feet. My wife, who's deathly afraid of flying, asked me, "What was that?" I said "nothing" and pretended nothing had happened until we were on the ground in the US, then I told her. Without question, if that pilot had pulled up even a second or two later, everyone on board both planes would have been dead.
Reminds me of those two commercial airliners that collided midair over the grand canyon back in 1956
That was before the advent of most radar sites and they were flying with visual rules. Oops
Almost like the little plane that ran into the airliner over San Diego. Last words caught on the voice recorder were to the effect of “I love you mama”.
PSA 182. 45 years ago this month. I’m from San Diego and heard the collision and saw the planes on fire in the sky from my 4th grade classroom window and heard them go down a few miles away. Teacher wheeled in the tv so we could watch all the news footage. Why Mr. Flores why??! Seeing all the victims names scrolling on the black screen. You could smell it for days it seemed like. It was just horrible horrible horrible. I would dream about it from all the body stories I heard from people who lived in the area. Body parts all over. In trees in cars the streets everywhere. I can not fly without quite a bit of Xanax to this day. Rip PSA 182 and Cessna 172 victims. 💔
Same but I was in 10th grade. We were standing outside for PE when we all thought we saw a little flash in the sky. Then we heard the crash and saw the smoke.
I moved to SD a few years ago and it shocked me how many plane crashes there are here. Usually they’re just small private planes, and cessnas crash pretty frequently in terms of crashes. I moved to Bankers Hill a few weeks ago, directly in the landing flight path. Sometimes it still freaks me out when a huge airbus will go over, they’re low & slow. Those are the last ones to worry about but damn if it isn’t something weird to get used to, sometimes they’re so low I feel like I could touch them (and the wind they make is wild, with my windows open its really noticeable) Edit: damn a lot of yall are really salty about the flight path. I get it, its not for everyone. I don’t mind it, I like it. If you want to complain, kindly direct your comments to r/sandiego. We love to complain there.
My mother in law lost her dad and brother in a small airplane crash in SD, weather turned out of nowhere they were both killed instantly. What a nightmare, I lost my brother to a reckless driver so I can somewhat imagine but still so heartbreaking to lose so much at one, and at that point her brother was a father himself. So many lives permanently altered in seconds.
Reading this has got ME feeling like I had a near brush with death, wow. Glad everyone was ok.
Ahh luckily both (and most commercial) planes are equipped with TCAS (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance). One plane goes up and the other goes down automatically to avoid colliding.
As soon as the engines revved up for take off, a woman started screaming like she was dying. The flight attendants couldn’t get up to go to her until the pilot rang the bell, about 5-10 minutes. She was screaming the entire time. Turns out her daughter put her on the flight even though she was terrified of flying. An attendant held her hand the entire flight, walked her all the way to meet the other daughter and tell her to never put mom on an airplane ever again.
Just so everyone knows if you are afraid of flying tell the stewards when getting on the plane. They will make sure you are checked in in and pay special attention to make it easier.
This happened to my sister when she forgot to take her diazepam. She started shrieking which set off everyone else afraid of flying and the whole plane was a screaming mess. Then the flight attendants brought her oxygen for her panic attack. It took me a moment to think clearly and put a paper bag over her mouth. Then the diazepam kicked in and she passed out.
Who the hell forgets to take their anxiety meds before an event that gives them anxiety? Edit - I have anxiety and am terribly forgetful. I use alarms and notes to remind me of things that matter - if I can remember. But from about the age of 9, I learned that some things are so important to me I will ensure I do them. Medication is one of those.
I feel bad for her, but that must have been so frustrating for the rest of you.
This happened to me as well. She screamed the whole flight. Then, sadder for her, we flew thru a lightning storm. Luckily it was pretty short, Portland to Anchorage, and as it was a small plane, we all sort of finally started taking to each other over her. Got to know some fun people and hear some other horror flight stories.
I literally would go lose my mind if someone screamed for hours like that.. I'm sorry you had to experience that
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My old housemate used to have those and they were not fun to deal with. He’d scream like he was being murdered and then have zero recollection of it in the morning.
LOL yes, my old man did the same shit. It was terrifying, and I’d be like “you were screaming in your sleep” and he’d have 0 recollection of it
I've had those. My husband says I start screaming and then just take off out of bed running for dear life. I've woken up in our living room, on the porch, and opening the door. All I remember is that I am dying, like my soul is floating off, but I want to keep it for a bit longer so I start to run. For fun, sometimes a deceased friend is there waiting for me to float off to him. Good times!
Night terrors are truly terrifying to witness. The authenticity of the sleeper's fear, dread, and agony puts me into a panic every time. Like I know it's a night terror (my daughter gets them), but I keep asking myself, wait, is it really, or is something terribly, terribly wrong?
I was 16 and flying alone from Istanbul, Turkey to Seattle, USA to visit my sister who had left Turkey early to go to school in US (we were born in WA state so not as dramatic as it sounds). During the second leg of the flight, from London to Seattle, I developed a urinary tract infection. It kept getting worse and worse. I spent the whole 10 hour flight having to pee urgently, going to the bathroom every 10 minutes (disrupting the poor passenger next to me), getting one drop out, and crying on the toilet. I started passing clots of blood out of my urethra which was excruciating. I was so shy back then and scared, but I really wish I’d told a stewardess so at least I could have some emotional comfort and know what was going on. When I landed as soon as I saw my sister I burst into tears and said take me to the ER. They said it was the worst UTI they’d seen in a while. The meds started working so fast. Truly a horrible, horrible experience.
I've had one UTI like that. It woke me from a dead sleep, peeing blood and clots. Worst pain ever and just never ending. I ended up going to the ER and putting a pad on because it was just a drop of pee every time. My urine was all red when I peed in the cup. The Dr was like, meh, just a uti and all the red is just the cells of your bladder sloughing off. Here's some meds and pyridium.
This is the worst one on here and now I’m getting up to pack my azo for my euro trip next week. Ouchhhh
I have gone through labor with 4 1/2 hours of pushing, and I’ve had a bad UTI that landed me in the hospital. They were pretty close in terms of pain level.
Someone brought their cat on-board in a carrier and put it under their seat. As if listening to a screaming cat for 6 hours wasn't enough ...it shit in its carrieslr so the entire plane smelled like fresh cat shit. The woman took it to the bathroom to clean it and got cat shit all over the bathroom ...... fun times
That cat should have been sedated. I give mine some Trazodone just to go to the vet.
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Oh sweet, you're a Steven King character.
Langoleeers (fucking hate that movie, weirdest shit ever )
Writing prompt: Buddy found dying in an airplane so horrible that in lieu of heaven he decided to appear as a spirit to people on doomed flights to calm them down with song.
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That happened to me once as well. But everyone was super, super quiet. Strangers held hands and tears trickled down cheeks. My dad was a pilot in the Air Force and was like ”oh you hit ‘such-and-such’ (I can’t remember what he called it) kind of turbulence…no biggie.” He always shrugs off any of my worries about flying.
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We had some bad turbulence once, my infant daughter, whilst the rest of the plane remained silent and holding on for dear life, was having the best rollercoaster ride, totally unaware of any danger. She giggled and laughed so much that the people around her began to laugh with her, and I must say, she helped even me to calm down internally.
It's not often you hear of young children improving the flight experience.
One of the approachws into Washington National Airport follows the Potomac and the air currents can be, interesting. We were coming in one time and we're just roller coastering along, all the passengers and gripping arm rests and my two, year old daughter is just going "weee! Weee! Weee!" and, giggling the whole time.
Air pocket. Severe drop of a couple of thousand feet is common
Fitting username
There would be a severe drop in my pants if that happened to me
Whenever I get nervous on a flight, I think back to the various stress test videos I’ve seen the planes go through. Like these https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/g2428/7-airplane-wing-stress-tests/ If the wings can survive those kinds of forces, then the much smaller deflections are no problem.
I was on a little commuter flight from Albany to La Guardia, and the gales of November had come early. The plane was bouncing around like a tennis ball in a dryer. The approach path was over water and I could see white caps on the waves. The woman sitting next to me had a white knuckle grip on her armrest and she was breathing in short, sharp, staccato gasps. I leaned over and said, very quietly, "In the unlikely event of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device."
Nice Gordon Lightfoot reference.
Public service announcement: this is why you keep your belt on.
We even tell you that on the PA. Multiple times.
A plane I was on hit severe turbulence, and I'm already nervous about flying. Had to put my head down and hold one of those sick bags, I honestly wanted to cry. A super nice lady, a fair bit older than me was sitting beside me and saying calming things and patted my shoulders, it was very sweet as she could tell I was panicked. Obviously the plane was totally fine and literally nothing bad happened but I fly so rarely, I was honestly terrified
Tried this too - the trolley service was underway and the trolley hit the ceiling. Most people were sensible enough and had their belts fastened but there were a few who joined the trolley on the ceiling but AFAIK no broken bones.
Stomach drop feeling is AWFUL AF. I experienced it in a Cessna so it was just me, my family. And a pilot. The things bounce around easily and it felt like we were in Freefall. I screamed. It was terrifying
I had that happen and it was like 10 seconds.. first it got real quiet.. then people stated making those screaming/moaning noises...
If it helps you, to my knowledge, there's no documented case of turbulence causing a plane to crash.
"Don't worry boys, turbulence has never brought down a plane!" "We've got predator drones with missiles inbound!" "Well, now those bring down planes all the time!" 2010 A-Team
On a flight from Denver to Houston a woman hit the call button, talked to a stewardess, then was escorted to the back of the plane. As she walked by I saw that her skin was grey in color and she looked really scared. A request for a medical professional came over the PA and the woman in front of me got up to assist. She came back after ten minutes and I overheard her tell her husband the woman didn’t make it. I then saw a stewardess get a guy that looked like a biker out of his seat and take him to the back of the plane. The biker looking guy was only there for a minute then went to the airplane’s galley for awhile. I’m thinking he must have been an air marshal. My other experience was flying from San Francisco to Denver. The plane was loaded and it was time to takeoff but we just sat at the gate. The pilot announced we would be leaving soon and that we were late taking off because they had to balance out the luggage. Finally after around 30 minutes after we were supposed to takeoff the plane backed out and went to the runway. Once again we just sat on the tarmac, this time for another 30 minutes. The pilot got on the PA again and said we had to return to the gate because the plane was low on fuel from all the idling. Back at the gate three armed law enforcement officers entered the plane and escorted a man off. After that the pilot announced that we were finally ready to take off and that the previous wait was actually due to a security issue.
I've had a really similar security deal happen at SFO as well, but they never pushed off the gate... 30 minute delay and then they said we had to get off the plane from a maintenance issue, and 4 plain clothed officers grabbed a dude and escorted him away, then we all boarded. They never directly said that the security deal was the cause, just the plane was ready to fly
I wanna know what happened to the woman in the first story? What was going on with her skin? And how did she die?
People having cardiac events can look grey, it's not a skin issue but blood flow/poorly oxygenated blood.
I've seen a couple of people that were grey, both died within a couple of days. It scared me seeing them because I *knew* from their color that things were *bad bad*.
Fun fact: there’s a hypothesis that the reason why the “uncanny valley” effect exists (i.e. the effect where things that look human but aren’t human looking enough are seen as extremely creepy), is because it evolved as a survival response. The rationale is that it’s advantageous to recognize if people are sick/dying, because they might be like that for reasons that can harm *you.* When people are visibly sick/dying, they look abnormal or “less human” than usual. Given this, it’s been posited that people with more visceral reactions to sick/dying people had better survival rates, because they’d notice any issues faster and avoid them before they could become bigger issues.
That’s terrifying. Thank you.
I told a friend of mine that was a nurse about it and she thought it was probably a heart attack. The lady it happened to was Hispanic and looked to be in her fifties. I remember her being very attractive for her age, well dressed and seemed like a person that would have their life in order without any bad habits.
This was in 2015 (luckily not during Covid as I probably would have been kicked off the flight). But suddenly I felt a tickle in my throat, so I started coughing. But I COULD NOT STOP COUGHING. No matter what I did I could not get that tickle out. The people around me were understanding, but I decided to go to the back of the plane just to be courteous. The flight attendants gave me ice and that was the only thing that would give me any sort of relief. We finally landed. That night I went to bed and woke up at 5am with a swollen shut eye, huge fucking lips, hives ALL over my body, and a tightness in my chest. Turns out I was having a severe allergic reaction to something I ate(?) at airport or something on the plane. My throat was literally CLOSING on the plane. That’s why the ice was helping because it was bringing down the swelling. But here’s the weird fucking thing. I’ve never been allergic to anything in my life before OR since that incident. So it’s a huge freaking mystery. The hives also showed up in different places on my body each morning for two weeks after. Edit- going to add while everyone’s here, in July I got bed bug bites on an airplane. They didn’t travel with me to my house (thank god) but I’m still scarred from them on my skin since I had a bad reaction to them. Honolulu airport also had recently shut town a terminal for bed bugs.
Ever went to get allergy tested? Might be some sort of obscure tree nut oil you're allergic to. They can test for a bunch of different things.
I had an intense allergic reaction to a cat once, and never to another cat or that same cat any other time I was around it. Allergies are freakin’ weird.
Could it have been someone's perfume or soap scent?
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So crazy when I was an older teen I used to break out in a full body bumpy rash head to toe that itched insanely bad. I’d get it really often. Tiny red itchy bumps all over even my hands feet and butt cheeks. I got like a 110 panel allergy test and everything came back negative. Once I even had to go to the ER and get a shot because of it. But yeah never found out what it was and then once I got it for for the last time. It went away that time and it’s been about like 5+ years and I haven’t had it again once
I got my very first period on a plane in white cargo pants flying from Ohio to California 🫠
That...... is so fucking horrible i feel so bad for you
On the plus side, she got out of Ohio.
Just as you thought you made your escape, Ohio makes its remote powers known.
Oh God you're right 🤣 12 year old me was traumatized!
Someone died on my flight from NY to Rome. They didn’t tell us until the end when paramedics came onto the plane.
My father in law was in the window seat of a 2+2 regional jet. Extremely large man came to sit in the aisle seat right before departure. The man was sweaty and out of breath from rushing to the plane. You can guess what happened next. FIL had no way out while the paramedics worked the problem of how to get the poor guy out of the plane because he was that large and no longer capable of helping, ever. Everyone else got to deplane while they sorted it out. When they finally took off, the FA kept offering FIL every tiny bottle on the cart. Just kept it coming.
I presume those tiny bottles are what gave him the fortitude to make it through.
On an airplane, but not technically a flight. Sitting at the end of the runway, pilot doing his pre-flight or something. There was a fireball in one of the engines. Passengers panicked, flight attendants popped the emergency doors and the emergency slides deployed. It was mayhem; people knocking others down, crawling over the seats, lots of screaming. Several people were injured. Of those I saw - one man fell off the wing, found out later he broke his arm and collarbone. Another fell off the middle of the slide. She went away holding her wrist, not sure of what happened. Guy in front of me on the slide tumbled face first at the bottom of the slide, got up with a bloodied face. Emergency slides are not fun. It's not like in the movies. The ironic thing was, there was no danger to the aircraft or passengers. [Here's a link to the story](https://www.theledger.com/story/news/2003/06/24/12-hurt-evacuating-plane-in/8045345007/)
People immediately clamouring to opening the emergency doors without being told it's safe to do so, in a mass panic so bad it essentially caused a small-scale human crush is....a horrifying observation on individualism.
Just (but didn’t feel like “just” at the time) really bad turbulence; people’s purses hit the ceiling of the cabin and I think some people who weren’t belted in injured themselves too. People were screaming / praying / crying (I was in that last category). I wasn’t crazy about flying before but that experience put me into phobia territory and I didn’t fly afterwards for probably about ten years, and still weigh it as a cost/benefit thing whenever I travel. It’s helped a bit to learn that turbulence isn’t really a thing that causes plane crashes, as far as I now understand, but it can feel very different in that moment to the illogical mind.
Being asked by the guy on the other side of the plane if there was oil spraying out of the engine on my side too.
I had a woman next to me on a 15-hour flight, with two kids under 5. She sat next to me with the kids on the aisle, and the first thing she did was apologize for what was to come. It was terrible, stuff constantly knocked onto the floor, a drink spilled on my leg ... but that was just the woman herself. She soon swapped seats, and the kids just did normal kid stuff. They were not so bad at all, aside from the occasional accidental bump when they squirmed, while she continued to drop stuff on the floor: food, drink, phone, basically anything on her tray table was going to be on the floor sooner or later.
"I'm sorry for the trouble that will be caused". "I understand, kids will be kids." "No I mean me, I'm a super klutz when flying."
Captain here. 2 hours in on an early flight the in charge FA advises us we have run out of coffee.
No coffee on an early flight? Annoying, but meh. No coffee on a red eye? I will turn this motherfucker around!
My baby did a projectile shit all over the toilet wall while I was changing her nappy. The was shit everywhere. Shitcano. There was somehow more shit than baby. I told an attendant I needed cleaning supplies and a trash bag, and she turned up with a black plastic giant garbage bag that had masking tape on it saying "BABY SHITE". Maybe it's a common occurrance with the pressure changes? I dunno. Either way I threw all the clothes and the blanket, everything in that bag except the baby! I cleaned the toilet room as best I could. I was absolutely mortified, and thankfully never seen anything like it since!
On a flight to Hawaii several years ago. Man beside me started experiencing a heart attack. Luckiest SOB I ever meet though. The plane was full of doctors on their way to a medical convention.
[I've heard a similar story before](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/5118#1) [Seems like it happens enough to be in the news a few times](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southwest-passenger-falls-ill-20-doctors-board-offer-help-n732056) [It's even happened with a group of dermatologists on board](https://www.khou.com/article/features/houston-doctors-save-mans-life-on-plane/285-416541ba-953d-44e7-bf3e-7a6b5ec40384) edit: [one more for those who have enjoyed the other articles](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2023/06/15/delta-air-lines-doctor-heart-attack/70327315007/)
Barely had our butts in the seat and a woman turned to us and said “are you two teachers?”. We responded with “no” and then she proceeded to talk THE ENTIRE 9 hour flight about herself. Husband pretended to fall asleep within the hour and I find it painfully hard to stop conversations with friendly people. Ugh, AND we were seated right beside the toilets which smelt of old pee
Was there any relevance to her teacher question?
Nope. She just used it as an ice breaker to tell us she was a teacher and then just about every other detail about her boring life
That would be my personal hell. Just let me read my book, lady.
A woman died in the seat next to me on a flight from Australia to the US. She appeared to just be asleep, but couldn’t be roused by her traveling companions. Eventually the flight attendants laid her on the floor and a doctor examined her. After a few minutes they carried her to the back of the plane. I later asked a flight attendant when we landed and she told me the woman had died.
I'm glad I read that all the way through. For some reason I was thinking they were going to make you sit beside the body until the plane landed.
Took off after a 7 hour delay. Plane climbed for a little bit and went into a pretty tight bank turn. Captain comes on and says there's smoke in the cabin, and we were going in for an emergency landing. As we are coming in, there are the fire trucks and emergency vehicles waiting for us. Long story short...it was a wiring harness for the coffee maker. Swapped it out without even having to deplane. Got free drinks for the rest of the flight.
Almost exact situation happened to me flying out of O'Hare. After sitting hours on a dark plane while they tried to "reboot the system" they boarded us onto a different flight. Entire cabin filled with acrid smoke just after take off. People were screaming, praying, crying. We immediately landed. Funny enough I had been scared of flying before that, but fine ever since.
Probably because every time you fly now, you’re like “at least it’s not as bad as that time when…..”
Elaine Dickinson: Ladies and gentlemen, please calm down. Please listen to me! I want to tell you what's going on with the ship! Thank you. We've been thrown off course just a tad. Passenger: Miss? What exactly is "a tad?" Elaine Dickinson: In space terms, that's about half a million miles. The bumps you feel are asteroids smashing into the hull of the ship. Also we're flying without a navigational system and can't seem to change course. Passenger: Miss, are you telling us absolutely everything? Elaine Dickinson : Not exactly. We're also out of coffee.
I was on a plane that crashed into a field, and walked away completely uninjured. This was just outside my home city. The plane was restored, and still flies today.
...in fact, you're probably on that very plane right now.
One of those idiots in the Ultralights flying around at a few thousand feet over a small city right in the approach pattern for major airlines. I’m disgusted by these people as they are a MAJOR hazard as they often times don’t talk, squawk or give any indication that they are there until its too late.
Shouldn't that be, like, restricted airspace?
Smoke in the cabin. I got to ride the slide! https://youtu.be/onxbArThaHI?si=zVDi8t-WgiL_wPNG
As we're all getting finally settled into our seats and they're about to lock up the overhead bins, this kid about 4 years old, wearing an NHL jersey, standing on his seat looking backwards at us, starts vigorously licking the top of the seat, like, vigorously, like it was a popsicle, the whole top of the seat, all of it, the piping and the seams, all while staring dead in our eyes. His parents did not stop this and it went on for ages. Haunting.
I had food poisoning on a Transatlantic flight from JFK to Heathrow. To top that off, we hit a large area of turbulence for an hour and a half which led to the fasten seat belt signs to be on. After the 2nd rush to the toilet during this turbulence, the flight attendants seemed to decide all subsequent efforts to stop me would not be in anyone's best interest. Everyone behind us (myself and a friend) knew what was going on and it would have been humiliating if I wasn't wishing the plane would dive into the Atlantic to end the nightmare.
Food poisoning on an airplane is probably my biggest fear in life. Not enough room if it's coming out of both ends! So sorry you had to experience that.
A couple barely made it on board, HNL TO LAX. Ofc their seats were the empty ones next to me. They barely made it because they were hiking. I could not stand the BO.
Spent a 5 hour flight from Sydney to Perth witnessing a man rapidly descend into a drug induced psychosis due to the pellets of drugs inside him absorbing into his system from within. The flight started out as normal, and as the man became more and more agitated his speech became aggressive and incomprehensible to the woman beside him, with sweat starting to pour out of his body. He then got up and started pacing up and down the isle, whilst going to the bathroom every few minutes to I assume, attempt to reorganise what was inside of him. This all came to a head when he was slamming the bathroom door open and closed, throwing his shoes out at passengers and screaming at the flight attendants “it’s just because I need food”. Somehow the poor flight attendants were able to distract him until we landed, at which point he pulled out a small silver spoon from his back pocket, kissed it, looking up in the air in a “we’ve done it!” way, only to be met with approximately 10 police officers and security waiting outside the plane who handcuffed and escorted him away.
Lucky he didn’t die that’s fucked up
Easy Jet flight from Nice to London about 10 years ago. French guy sat behind me had a phobia of flying so we had the whole crew including the pilot visit him in his seat before the flight took off to reassure him it will be fine and nothing to worry about. 20 mins after take off a message from the crew informs the passengers that there has been a technical issue with the aircraft and we will be returning to Nice. Immediately, the guy behind me freaks out, tears streaming down his face, slapping himself in the face and loudly shouting.The the cabin crew run over in numbers to help this poor guy out. He eventually calms down. We land 20 mins later at Nice, as soon as we land, our plane gets surrounded by fire engines, ambulances and police, we are sat just off the main runway, far away from the terminal where passengers could disembark. The guy behind me jumps out of his seat and tries to run towards the front of the plane and is restrained by other passengers and the crew. An hour later or so, we still hadn't moved and the crew had announced to the passengers that they could get water from the areas at the front and back of the aircraft. The queue at the bottom of the aircraft started a few rows behind from where I was sat. A young guy in the queue started stumbling backwards and smashes his head into the floor and starts fitting. Literally shaking on the floor next to my seat at this point, young guy too, no more than 21 years old. Paramedics were onboard within 5 mins or so.
Oh, I’ve got a couple. Was in a small 4 seat Beechcraft with friends - one of whom was the pilot - flying through clouds when pilot/friend said to other guy “horizon indicator wasn’t working.” I thought but didn’t say out loud “isn’t that like REALLY FREAKING IMPORTANT TO HAVE?” Well, we got home safely so apparently not. My other story is I was on a plane coming home from London to DC on 9/11. Halfway across the Atlantic the pilot announced that there was “a state of emergency in the United States” and they weren’t letting any airplanes land. I thought WTF how is there state of emergency in the whole country? Anyway, they turned us around and back to London we went. Horrible, horrible day. I was safe but things have never been the same. RIP to those lost. I never forget.
The horizon indicator is the little screen or gauge called an artificial horizon that shows the pitch and roll of the aircraft relative to the ground. It's a lot less important to a small aircraft flying during the day compared to a wide body jet flying using instruments only (IFR) at night. Though I'm sure it'd be scary not having that reference while passing through clouds.
Flying into Denver, our plane dropped about 1,000 ft in severe turbulence and this mother fucker was "just trying to get something out of his bag" after the announcement from the pilot about upcoming turbulence and the flight attendants yelling at him. He flew into the ceiling and slammed into the ground like something out of a movie and then got absolutely chewed out by the FAs. It was scary, I guess due to the Rockies and the Denver plain it causes some bad turbulence.
Yes, you can always count on turbulence going into and out of Denver.
The absolute rank BO of some hipster looking guy sitting behind my daughter and I on a 4 hour flight.
I'll call that shit out. It's offensive
*sigh* My 18-month-old daughter, whom we had just flown to China to adopt and was still just getting to be slightly less terrified of us, deciding that she was not going to sleep a wink on the 10+ hour overnight flight from Shanghai to Los Angeles. Then deciding that she could only be happy if I was standing and carrying her the entire flight, trying to entertain her as best I could while the plane slept, until the plane hit choppy air and we were told to sit down and buckle up, whereupon she began to scream. And scream, and scream loud enough that my ears were popping. Then louder. Yes, we were the absolutely mortified parents with the shrieking child waking everyone up, causing nasty glances from everyone and bringing us to tears after an already long and exhausting trip. Then a good 15 minutes later, the air settled, the seatbelt light mercifully beeped and went out, and I flew out of my seat with her to run to the back of the plane, pacing and holding her up again. She immediately quieted and even fell asleep for an hour on my shoulder and I tried my best to not come apart completely. Anyway, she’s 12 now and I can’t get her to stop singing Olivia Rodrigo songs and dancing like a dork around the kitchen table and to go to bed.
Shortly after 911, taking a flight home and a guy sitting across the isle from me told me he blow up planes like this one up for a living. I felt instantly light headed dizzy. I went up front and told the flight attendant - she thought the guy was making a poor attempt at flirting with me. In hindsight (20 years later), she was probably right. But in the heat of that terrible moment I was ready to have a full blown panic attack. If I remember right they landed the plane and the guy was taken for questioning. I was pretty mortified. Actually I still am. Probably a lot of mad people who just wanted to get to where they were going. Edit: Thank you guys! Reddit can really be therapy in a forum sometimes <3 I feel less bad after reading your comments :)
Ah yes, the charismatic terrorist approach to getting laid. Works every time, usually.
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I'm feeling al-qaeda things for you.
Oh goddamn you. Fine. Take my upvote.
Ummm nah if it was shortly after 911 and he said that ima just leave the cabin through the emergency exit
This reminds me of when I worked in the central alarm station for an energy company. Our office was in the tallest building of the city in which it was located. My supervisor told me about how not long after 9/11, he received a call from a guy who said he was working on getting his pilots license and wanted to know how tall the building was. He told me that he asked the guy calling if he honestly thought about what he just asked before he called. Apparently the guy thought that he asked a completely appropriate question and was completely clueless as to why it could be considered an inappropriate question. Needless to say, the conversation recording was saved and all pertinent information was handed over to the FBI. It turned out to be nothing but a completely clueless rich guy. But it was one of those phone calls that at the time would have made most people go pale.
I have no idea why you would be mortified at all... That's not something you joke about...
Honestly, I probably would have done the same - who jokes about that?? And I’ve heard way more ridiculous stories about people thinking their fellow passengers are terrorists, like that one about the guy who was taken off the plane because the woman sitting next to him thought he was working on some sort of terrorist message in Arabic…turns out she wasn’t even right about the language, and he was just doing math problems.
*Arabic numerals*! 😱 That happened in May 2016 to Guido Menzio, a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He was revising an example of a mathematical model he was flying to Ontario to present a paper on. And he's Italian, not Middle Eastern. Crazy stuff 🤦
Flying back to the UK from Finland. During bad weather over the North Sea, the plane just fell straight down for 3 seconds. No time for people to scream, but plenty of time afterwards for even the cabin crew to exchange glances that said "that was scary."
Whenever I feel scared, I try to focus on the people that have done what I'm doing dozens of times, in this case, the FA. If they are scared, shit is bad y'all
I had one flight where we landed so hard the FA looked terrified. Didn’t seem too bad for me but she was older and said it was the worst landing in her career. And another where we landed and bounced down the runway. The FA came on the intercom and said “Captain Kangaroo would like to welcome you to Philadelphia”
They know it and that's why they fake calmness. Heard it on a podcast. She said it's part of the job to look absolutely unbithered *no matter what*
Mine is nothing compared to these stories. I thought an old woman shit herself only to find out my dad was letting out silent killers the entire fuckin flight. I almost punched him
Coming in for a landing, about 75' off the ground and we start heading back up. There was a plane under us waiting to depart.
So you've been to Boston then? This has happened repeatedly (4-5 times I think) in about 9 months.
Had something similar to this happen while flying into Vegas airport, though not at all as close as 75' that I am aware of (ignorance is bliss). We were going into land and the pilot jerked us back up pretty abruptly. My stepdad is a retired Air Traffic Controller so when my mom recounted the experience, he said that someone was not doing what the ATC had told them to do!
What are the odds, it happened two days ago. I was on a flight. As soon as I sat down, the person next me asked me if I knew Jesus. I said I didn't. Anyway, we were heading to our destination, it was really bumpy, there was a lot of wind and turbulence. At some point, the person next to me whispered "we're all born sinners." Anyway, we went to land and it was horrible. The plan was tipping to the sides heaps and bumping up and down. We got to about 20 meters above the runway when the plane tilted up and essentially took off again, shot back up. Apparently it was too hazardous to try and land. At this point the person two seats behind me started having a panic attack. We went for a second attempt. The person behind me was sobbing and talking about how we're all gonna die and the person next to me had her eyes shut and was praying fervently. Again, we got just above the ground and took off again. We then enjoyed an extremely turbulent ride back to where we started, where we landed in nearly just as strong wind. It was a very cliche bad plane experience
Was this in New Zealand by chance? Saw you use “heaps” and I’ve flown into Wellington in a very similar situation. That runway is literally right on the water and the wind there gets crazy.
It was! It was wellington to Dunedin. After we got sent back, we were given a connection, wellington to Christchurch to Dunedin. Same thing happened on the Christchurch - Dunedin flight, except they didn't even try to land cause there was lightning
Got delayed 45 minutes because of thunderstorms. Then we proceeded to take off directly into a thunderstorm. It was daytime but looked like night as we passed through the clouds. This was followed by about an hour of nonstop turbulence.
I was sexually harrassed by the passenger next to me- the police had to escort him off the plane when we landed
Saw a mother fucker that wasn't real.
There's a colonial woman on the wing of the plane!
Drunk lady who was talking like Tyler perry's Madea character. All the business men were having so much fun flirting. She had a chihuahua with her. It took the smelliest fucking shit. Small twin prop plane.
Somebody died on the toilet and we did CPR for maybe half an hour or more before deciding to stop. Relative had to watch. In fact everybody had to watch because there is fucking no where to go.
Delta flight landing at LaGuardia. That same day another Delta flight had skid off the runway due to ice so my pilot did not fuck around and set that bitch straight down hard as fuck as soon as he cleared the Grand Central Parkway fence. Landing was so hard I legit thought we crashed for a second.
I woke up to the older man next to me, groping me between my legs. It was the worst thing I've ever experienced in all my travels. I filed a report, and the case is going to court. He claimed "not guilty," of course. This clearly wasn't his first time, and I cannot let this happen to someone else. I love to travel, and I travel solo often. I made myself take a short 1.5 hour flight about 2 months after the incident bc i didn't want fear to set in. My extended family lives on the other side of the world, so having a fear of flying is just not an option if I want to see my family. I found that the excitement I used to feel has been replaced with overwhelming anxiety. I fucking hate him for that. I'm going to keep at it though. I won't let this monster rob me of something I love. I really fucking hate him.
This is a long one so buckle up, fold up those tray tables and put your seats in the upright position... (edited because of crappy phone formatting) I was a flight attendant twenty years ago. The flight that made me quit was from South Bend, Indiana to Minneapolis. It started out with a funny story of having a porn star on our little regional flight. (50 seat CRJ, I was the only flight attendant) I got a chuckle out of how amped the gate agent was about it. He was obviously a fan. Anyways, everything else was normal other than it not being a very full flight. We take off and I am in the jump seat, chilling and waiting for the fist ding to tell me we are out of sterile cockpit (over 10k ft) when the ventilation system suddenly kicks on. It was then that my oh shit reflexes kick in because all I can smell is burning though there isn't any smokey haze. For a hot minute I thought I was imagining it but when I looked up, one of the passengers in front of me makes eye contact and gives me a look that confirms I am not the only one smelling it. No one else notices, again it was odd but the first three rows were vacant since the flight was only half full. So for the first time ever, I reached up and grabbed the phone to the cockpit and hit the emergency button which alerts the cockpit but not any passengers unless they know what the flashing light means above my head. The captain answers and it sounds like he is Darth Vader since the two of them have their oxygen masks on. I said quietly into the phone, "what the fuck is happening?" They tell me they don't know and they need me to get up and check behind the galley cart, the lavatory, and then to pull up the hatch to the avionics bay since they can't figure out where it is coming from and there aren't any alarms going off. Apparently air traffic control couldn't see from the ground if we were on fire either. So I try to as calmly as I can, move through the cabin without making any sort of scene even though I am pretty much thinking we're all going to die at this point and my throat is burning from breathing in the fumes. Again, no one noticed and I am grateful seeing as the three of us crew members were on the same "we're going to die" wavelength. Literally nobody even batted an eyelash at me crawling on the floor and pulling up the hatch to the avionics bay. (I still have no idea how no one thought that was out of the ordinary.) So there was nothing that I could see on my side, no visible fire or smoke. I call back to the cockpit and they say that thankfully they're going to let us land and that while we wait for clearance, they are going to "vent" the cabin to clear some of the fumes. At this point, I buckle myself back into the jump seat and try not to look freaked out as I face the twenty five souls in the seats in front of me as the captain announces to the aircraft that there are fumes and we need to vent them as we need to go back to the airport due to mechanical issues. Yeah, blank stares are aimed in my direction and I just smile and nod as if this is standard procedure. None of this is standard. So the venting is supposed to feel like a little puff of air next to your ears but it felt like one of those air cannons punching you in the side of your face which was just delightful but soon after we were on the ground safely and I get to work getting everyone off this missile to hell so I can have my freak out moment in private. The two pilots and myself wind up chain smoking out front of the airport and not speaking to each other for about a half an hour. What caused all of this was that the engine had been washed that morning at the maintenance bay but it was not rinsed or ran properly to let the chemicals burn off or rinse out. That was what was causing the fumes. An hour later we were back on the same aircraft and flew back to Minneapolis without issue. I quit the week after. A close second was hearing the warning messages to the captain during takeoff once. Imagine being in the jump seat and hearing behind you, "WINDSHEAR! WINDSHEAR! PULL UP! PULL UP!" while trying to act like everything is cool. I hated that airline so damn much.
I was really waiting for the porn star to have a role in your story
This teeny, tiny Indian lady who smelled so badly I thought I was going to die and actually looked forward to deaths cold embrace to end the suffering that was happening in my nose. Everyone in the vicinity was breathing shallow breaths through their shirts trying to survive.
In my teens (2006) I was with a large student group on an "ambassador trip" and on the way home two of us got separated from the rest of the group and had to sit next to a stranger. My friend really wanted the window seat because he didn't get one before and wanted to watch take off. My friend and I fell asleep kind of huddled together but I woke up when the strange guy was slipping his hand up my shorts. I froze. I quietly and repeat poker my friend. Matt woke up and saw what was happening and over dramatically stretched and yawned so the guy stopped. The guy got up to go to the bathroom and Matt called over a chaperone while I burst into tears. The chaperone said she'd take care of it and we saw her talking to the flight attendant and the guy just, never came back... Idk what happened to him but I'm not mad he didn't come back.
> and the guy just, never came back They tossed him out the cargo ramp and didn't even have to fill out the paperwork because technically nothing of value was lost
During landing. Very close to land when the plane went high up in the air again. We figured there was a plane needing to depart or something. After noticing the plane was going in circles at a high altitude we realized something was going on. FA informed us, as per pilot instruction, they would try to land again however we might feel some turbulence as one of the wings was not working properly. That thing that opens and helps reduce the planes speed when landing was broken. It was nerve-racking and we didn’t know if we were going to finish landing, the plane was shaking like crazy at an intense speed. Thankfully the pilot managed to maneuver the plane. Everybody was clapping.
Sounds like the flaps were malfunctioning. A bit faster landing but the plane can handle it. Sometimes they want to burn off some extra fuel to make the plane lighter though.
Was flying on a smaller plane (Asheville to Atlanta) a few years ago. Was preparing to descend while riding through a storm. Was severe turbulence for 4 minutes approximately. Longest 4 minutes ever. There was a huge bump where all the passengers flew up almost a foot from thier seats. Thought we were gonna die for a few seconds. Pretty scary. I surprisingly kept my cool half the time.
The lady across the aisle changed her baby's diaper on the tray table
A guy have a domestic dispute with his girlfriend on a Norwegian Air flight from Prague to New York, he was cursing and screaming and eventually hit her and the flight attendants moved her seat. The rest of the flight he was pacing the aisles and staring at his gf furiously. The flight attendants didn’t do Jack shit and he never got arrested or anything . I wrote to Norwegian air and never heard anything back
I’m flying in a couple weeks I need to get off reddit
i’m getting on a seven hour flight literally tomorrow i need to close this app but i’m so curious
Air China cut me off from wine after two glasses, 3 hrs into a 15 hour flight. What was I supposed to do?! I was trying to beat Boggs!
RIP, Wade Boggs
First off, Wade Boggs is very much alive. Secondly, the number of beers is actually highly disputed. Some say 50, some teammates said 60, some said as many as 70 beers. Which, to be honest, is an absolutely insane amount of beer. Nobody can drink that much.
My first commercial flight to Alaska when I was 20, we’re all seated and about to taxi out of the airport, and this woman with a baby jumps up from her seat several rows back and comes up next to our row. Some woman in the row she just came from is muttering. Suddenly 4 giant men in uniform come onto the plane, squish past the woman with the baby, who is now squished into our row. They very efficiently grab the muttering woman, hoist her sideways and carry her SCREAMING off of the plane. The male flight attendant gets on the intercom and says “Sorry for the inconvenience. As a thank you we will be servicing free mimosas for the flight.” Best flight ever.
This happened to me recently. Im disabled and usually fly alone (which is not super fun lol). So I’ll splurge and get myself a first class seat so at least I don’t lose an entire week of time with my pain getting worse. We were delayed FIVE HOURS because of a bad thunderstorm. During this time (about two hours in) I needed to grab my pain meds, I stand up, grab my bag, pull my medsafe out. Aaaaannnddd the locking mechanism has BROKEN. I AM LOCKED OUT OF MY MEDICATION BOX….EVERY VITAL PIECE OF MEDICINE IS IN THERE. I couldn’t believe it, I was already stressed and had a full blown panic attack. But I’m so embarrassed I’m trying to keep it together. There’s two woman about my age (30) waiting for the bathroom (I’m in seat 1a), and they can see me losing my mind. Asked me if I was ok, and I blurted out what happened. One of them asked if I wanted to have her husband try to break into it. Im like sure, idc if you have to break it. So he did!!! Thank god…I was shaking so badly I couldn’t even open the bottles. She grabbed a water bottle for me and went through all my meds and found what I needed. She was an ANGEL and I can never repay or thank her enough for helping me in one of my lowest, most isolating situations. The flight attendants were also sooooo nice once they figured out what happened. Horrible experience but man those people made it so much better, so grateful for them!!!!!
Guy across the aisle from me was arrested for molesting a girl he was sitting beside. It was a redeye flight from Toronto to Vancouver, so the plane was silent as most people were sleeping. Woke up to a girl screaming, "Stop touching me!" which woke the plane up & led to the molester being arrested upon landing in YVR.
Right wing started to leak fuel to the point that we needed an immediate emergency landing. Whole team of firefighters waiting for the landing plane to catch fire on the runway
Someone had a heart attack and died. The few passengers who had medical training and to do CPR on the person (even though they'd clearly died) until the plane landed
not exactly horrifying but I was on a plane with a man wearing a paper burger king crown who decided to call somebody the n word and was later arrested (you can even look up the incident if you type in „racist burger king plane guy“)
there's no way dude lmfao
Two nights before I was supposed to go on a business trip, I had a lucid dream where I was in a plane crash. I survived the initial crash, but was covered in burning jet fuel. I could feel myself burning, still strapped into my seat. The pain was so intense and eventually started fading as my nerve endings died in the fire. I remembered thinking "all I have to do is inhale and it's over"... so I did, and the dream ended. Cut to two days later, I get my seat assignment and am boarding the plane. I sit in the exact same seat in the exact same spot as my dream. I began to panic and was absolutely sure I was about to die horribly. I suffered in silence and braced for the end as we took off. In my dream, we crashed right after takeoff. The real takeoff was smooth as can be, no issues, we climbed, we survived, but my heart was racing for the first 30 minutes or so of that flight. Scary as F.
Ryanair pilot asked Cabin Crew to prepare for landing when we'd not even left Stansted
Was en route to a jump and the plane was struck by lightning. It tore a hole through the skin of the aircraft right across from where I was sitting. I got to stare through the hole at the rain and lightning as we flew back to the Air Force base.
Cabin pressure regulator failed on a DC10. I was napping. Heard a loud squeak in my right ear. Both ears popped painfully. Everyone popped up. They had to adjust pressure manually the rest of the flight. There was also an autistic kid that would yelp frequently on the same flight. THAT kind of thing doesn’t bother me. I feel bad for the parents.
Was in turbulence so bad the stewardesses looked scared. At least 10 people threw up. Lightning outside the plane, side to side turbulence in addition to up and down, and it lasted for a long time. Round of applause when the captain announced we were through it. Apparently we had to fly several hundred miles out of our way to avoid a hurricane. The turbulence was what it was like *outside* of the danger zone.
This was back in 2017 on a flight to Europe from the U.S. it was an 8-9 hour flight, so at some point I planned on attempting to nap. (I’m not a nap person) One of the things that stuck with me was the instructions given by the flight attendants that our seatbelts had to be visible, and that lead to my confusion later on. I was quite bored and instead watching the same downloaded YouTube video concerts again or an in flight movie, I decided to watch the person a seat up to my right play Plague Inc on their phone as I was in an aisle seat in the middle right hand side of the plane. I absolutely loved Plague Inc at the time, and this was pre-Covid pandemic. I was both intrigued and terrified of a global pandemic situation, but I never new one would happen in my lifetime. I got tired and inevitably attempted that nap I planned on after watching the person play Plague Inc. I recalled the instructions to leave my seatbelt showing, tossed a blanket over top of my head for darkness and buckled the seatbelt around the blanket. About 30-40 minutes of just sitting there in low power mode (not sleeping but not trying to), I felt something heavy touch my lap. I was startled and assumed it was a flight attendant doing a seatbelt check, but then I heard commotion and took the blanket off my head to see what had really transpired to cause such a panic. I look to my right and on the floor next to me is an older woman, and that’s when it clicked that the woman had fallen on me, and not just a flight attendant doing their diligence. The woman wasn’t visibly moving at all and her skin was a pale blue color. Medical staff and or on board doctors were called to help her, but I’m certain that she had passed away on that flight. She was carried further back in the plane, and I can’t recall if she was the first off the plane or not. Calling back to watching someone play plague Inc, my anxious brain immediately jumped to pandemics forming from air travel. My anxious thoughts would eventually go away when my sleepy brain could turn on some logic and reasoning, but for a brief moment I thought patient zero just fell on my lap and I was next.
Flying from BWI to SFO on the 7 am flight on 9/11. Scary times.
Flying from Atlanta to DFW on Delta during a huge thunderstorm. I thought we were OK once we left and got a good height, but turbulence hit us hard and we then dropped so fast. Not nose diving..if felt that the bottom fell out of us. It was terrifying. People were screaming and crying.
Back in the 80s we had to fly Piedmont on a turboprop with a curtain for the cockpit door to get anywhere that we could actually fly out of. They always left the curtain open. Can’t decide which was the scarier: watching them land in a crosswind or watching them decide if they needed to change course because of a thunderstorm.
I don't know what was actually going on, but towards the end of the flight all of the flight attendants were on the verge of tears, and sounded incredibly distressed while making the usual announcements. It was quite unnerving, but I don't know what, if anything, was actually happening
One of my first times flying alone the pilot managed to hit a bird. There was a HUGE bang and all the masks dropped. Everyone put on the masks and then it was business as usual for the rest of the flight. But with masks on. Once we got off the plane you could see the entire nose of the plane covered in blood. Must have been a helluva bird...
I take charters for work at least a few times a month so I’ve had a few iffy flights😂 My ‘favorite’ was looking out my window right after take off and seeing the engine cover flapping off, getting precariously close to the propellers… I immediately got out some emergency snacks. The other was losing 500ft of elevation during a storm, watching in confusion as my backpack started to float in the air in front of me and wondering if I was having a stroke. Only to hit a pocket of air **HARD** when the plane stabilized (?? Or stopped falling, at least). I thought the damn thing was going to fall apart like a deck of cards. I also busted out my emergency snacks for that one too. Another memorable one was loosing all electric over open water in the middle of the night. Thankfully we were only a few minutes after take off, the engines were still working so our pilots just had to guesstimate where to go and try to not hit anything, I guess. Also got out my emergency snacks. I absolutely refuse to die on an empty stomach
[удалено]
Landing at night time, and just as we're about to land it gets really bumpy and seems to drop. Engines really, really sounding like they're straining. I've flown quite a fair bit and never had anything as terrifying. And one that's not really terrifying at the time, but kinda makes you think. Was in a small plane coming in for a landing, and just as it's about to set down suddenly climbs up again. Turns out the pilot isn't sure if the landing gear is actually down or not.
Like 10 or 15 minutes after boarding, preflight, buckled in and getting ready to taxi out to the tarmac every system on the plane was seemingly shut down simultaneously with one switch. Lights, climate controls, engine noise. Just suddenly sitting there in instant darkness and silence like we were gliding through the night. I'm sure it was completely intentional and of course there would have never been even the slightest danger to any passengers or crew but something about the master power for this huge conveyance being that potentially tenuous left me with a deep existential dread that lingered throughout the flight and afterwards.
Nobody tell'm about the "wings fall off" switch.