“We almost crashed coming into O’Hare. The copilot was pretty inexperienced and tried to touch down during an insanely fast moving crosswind. He should have circled around again. I was seated in the back of the plane (CRJ900). Both passengers next to me had a death grip on my hand or knee. Was covered in bruises. I’ve never seen a pilot so pissed off. He was cussing out the copilot the whole way to the hotel.”
“Probably my favorite story is about a gentleman who went into one of the lavs to relieve himself. As he flushed, and opened the gooseneck valve to the tank, the plane hit a pocket of dead air and dropped, like 15 feet vertically. Everything in the tank proceeded upwards at the speed of gravity. He was… covered. They had to hose him off on the tarmac upon arrival.”
“We had a school group of young children sitting in the front of the plane. On takeoff, one little boy leaned over into the aisle and threw up. The puke rolled and splashed down the aisle almost all the way to the back galley.”
“The captain had us secure the cabin early for landing as we were expecting some bad cross winds, which can lead to crazy turbulence. We secured and I took my jump seat with another FA in the back.
On approach, the wind was gusting so bad that my seat mate and I were being whipped from side to side pretty severely. We were both pretty scared as this was the most violent landing either of us had experienced. She grabbed my hand and we held hands until we were sure we weren’t going off the runway.”
“Flight attendant here. Honestly, our planes are extremely well maintained and our pilots and air traffic controllers very well trained so the odds of something horrible happening in regards to crashing or malfunctioning are very slim. The worst thing that has every happened to me was being punched in the face by a very horrible four year old girl. That was genuinely pretty scary because I had never felt compelled to punch a child in the face before, really had to restrain myself that day.”
“Grossest story I have is someone smeared sh** all over one of the bathrooms during a 14-hour flight to China. It smelled putrid. We put up an out of order sign, but then a couple hours later someone had gone in and cleaned it up! We figured it was a kid and one of the parents had snuck in after.”
“One of my clients was a former pilot that finally quit when he realized in the middle of a flight his dementia had progressed and he couldn’t remember where he was supposed to be flying to. Meaning he had been flying for a commercial airline with dementia for quite some time before that.”
“I will never forget my last flight from Minneapolis to Detroit in October, 2009. For starters, we had a self-proclaimed psychic on board who informed everyone that “this plane is going to crash and we’re all going to fucking die” by screaming it at the top of her lungs as soon as we reached cruising altitude. We ended up having to move her to a private section of the plane to try to calm her down and ease the minds of the panicked passengers.
Sure enough, we hit extreme, unreported turbulence as soon as beverages were passed out. Drinks were flying through the air, luggage hit a few of the overhead bins open and people were screaming and terrified (mostly due to the psychic in my opinion). A couple other flight attendants couldn’t help but crying. It was a horrible scene.
After an eternity we reached Detroit. Of course the runways were iced over and we slid nearly sideways after touching down (Again, everyone was screaming). I’m honestly surprised the plane didn’t flip over. When we landed everyone let out a roar of applause. Airport security boarded the plane and detained the “psychic”. I was so shaken up that I quit as soon as we unloaded.”
“We were going in for a landing and aborted, and the pilot came on saying that the landing gear was showing a malfunction, so to just sit back and be patient. Maybe 30 minutes later the flight attendant starts moving the people sitting on the front of the plane to the back (just a precaution). I could see the fear. It was there.
So the pilot comes on and says we’re going in for a landing. I’m hyperventilating in my seat. We land flawlessly. I look out the window. All the emergency crews are on site. Around 10 firetrucks and five ambulances, plus plenty of police officers. Kinda made my stomach drop when I think about how serious this could’ve been. I shook that pilot’s hand as I stumbled off the plane.”
“Once during a very turbulent and stormy flight — the captain had just asked us to take our seats — our plane got struck by lightning. There was a loud thump and I saw a flash of light that didn’t come through the window. I knew that this usually doesn’t cause any problems, but it was scary. I sat on my jumpseat and recited all my procedures and commands in my head until we landed (which thankfully was in maybe 15-20 minutes).”
“One flight was delayed because one woman traveling with her 30 years old son didn’t want to take their separated seats during a 2 hours flight. They ended up occupying a seat of a mother traveling with her kid of 5 years old. The flight was full and the woman refused to give up the seats that were allocated for the mother with a kid using the excuse that she cannot be seperated from her grown up son as well. We explained that she made a mistake on the reservation and she could try to find seats after take off and other passengers tried to explain to her but decided not to move. The flight supervisor ended up asking people to swap seats and trying to find her two seats while the aircraft was on the ground. 189 passengers were waiting for this lady who can’t handle her adult son being seated some rows behind her for a short amount of time.”
“A few months ago, two men sitting next to each other started getting very physical over the arm rest. It escalated quickly, and one guy ended up having his nose broken. There was a pregnant woman near them that obviously was in danger of a stray punch. On the street, you can just walk away, but its quite terrifying when everyone looks at you to sort it out!”
“It was a transatlantic flight, and halfway through the flight near the back of the plane, the overhead bin started raining maggots on the passengers in one row — just pouring through. One of the other flight attendants on the plane investigated and discovered that a passenger had flown in from Africa and was traveling to the US via Europe, and had a whole dead fish filled with maggots wrapped inside a newspaper (apparently it’s considered a delicacy in some parts of the world).
They wound up leaving the closed suitcase in one of the bathrooms and locked the door until everybody disembarked after landing. Some people are afraid of crashing. Not me. I’m just afraid of maggot rain.”
“I was a flight attendant for delta back in the ’80s.
Once I noticed that a passenger had unusually shaped packages strapped to his chest. I told one of my fellow flight attendants, who correctly deduced that he was probably a drug mule.
We alerted the pilot, who contacted the DEA to be ready for when we landed.
After we landed, the gentleman seemed to realize that something was off. He bolted and locked himself into the plane’s bathroom.
The DEA came aboard, but after they busted into the bathroom, he was just sitting there with his pants around his ankles, acting as if nothing was wrong.
Here’s the kicker though, the DEA tested the contents of the plane’s waste tanks. They couldn’t find a trace of anything. No coke, no heroin, nothing.
Where did the drugs go?”
(Via /r/AskReddit)
