There's certainly no shortage of drama at airports or even up in the sky. While it's rare for a plane to turn around again after taking off, when it does happen, it's usually because of something serious: a medical emergency on board, a security risk, maybe even a mechanical failure.
In March 2025, a United Airlines flight departed LAX in Los Angeles with 257 passengers and 13 crew onboard. The Boeing 787 jetliner was 2 hours into the flight, bound for Shanghai, China and was cruising northwest over the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly, the pilot turned the plane around and started making his way to San Francisco.
His reason had nothing to do with any drama or emergency on board...
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After the plane touched down at San Francisco airport, the crew disembarked and a new crew took over. All because the pilot had forgotten something...
“The pilot did not have their passport onboard,” United Airlines admitted in a statement. “We arranged for a new crew to take our customers to their destination that evening. Customers were provided with meal vouchers and compensation.”
The pilot's absent-mindedness meant that the flight eventually landed in Shanghai about six hours behind schedule, with more than a few annoyed passengers on board.
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In 2023, Delta Airlines made headlines after one of its planes was forced to turn around due to a "biohazard" incident on board. The flight was two hours into the journey from Atlanta to Barcelona, Spain when the pilot requested to head back to Atlanta.
The "biohazard" turned out to be a terrible bout of diarrhea that struck one passenger and affected many more. In an audio recording posted on X (formerly Twitter), a voice can be heard saying, "We've had a passenger who's had diarrhoea all the way through the airplane, so they want us to come back to Atlanta."
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The "medical issue" caused a massive delay and maintenance crews reportedly spent five hours cleaning the Delta Airlines Airbus A350. They also had to replace an aisle carpet that was ruined in the incident.
“Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to get our customers to their final destination," said Delta in a statement. "We sincerely apologize to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans.”
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EDIT: Yes, I realize that in L.A., that doesn't even make the Top 500 of weird things you see, but where I'm from, yeah, that's a little unusual.
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When I asked him why he ate it he looked me dead in the eyes and said ,,I paid for it " to this day I don't understand his thought process.
Just to preface the sandwich was packed in a thick brown paper wrapping and he ate the whole thing even when there was no sandwich left he just bit of pieces of the paper wrapping.
In the most recent "biohazard" flight incident, a passenger's "relentless gas" saw cabin crew intervening after those on board complained of the foul smell.
"For the five hours that the passengers were on board, the stench did not dissipate," reported Wion News in December 2025. "It got so bad that the crew had to regularly spray air fresheners and also distribute face masks."
The incident has sparked debate around why the smell failed to dissipate despite modern aircraft filtration systems. "However, flights have a mix of fresh and recirculated air, with approximately 50 per cent fresh outside air and 50 per cent recirculated air," notes Wion.
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Luckily some TSA officers were able to grab some fire extinguishers and put out the small blaze in a matter of minutes. But it was nuts to see the response. Every alphabet soup agency you could think of popped up out of nowhere: Denver fire/PD, FBI, ATF, DEA, Air Marshals Service all showed up to investigate, they all got there so fast. They weren’t playin’.
Within 90minutes, it was determined that it was just some dude’s lithium ion battery from a vape ignited next to a can of Axe that caused the inferno - and the checkpoint was back up and running again. Made the local news that evening!
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Long story short when deployed with the Army it had hit my bed where I sleep while I wasn't there. I carried it as a trophy and reminder of good luck.
Anyway, I took it with me through security and TSA freaked out. It was obviously spent with no case or powder and deformed bullet from impact, but TSA agents reacted like it was a live round and I was a terrorist and swarmed me and held me until police got there. Police luckily laughed at them and let me keep it but suggested I don't take it through TSA security in the future.
So it sits in my desk now.
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Everyone freaked out for a second, then burst out laughing.
Airports are just pure chaos sometimes.
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I saw a sixty-ish year old woman come out of the terminal holding her boarding pass at arm's length in front of her like a divining rod, and instead of walking to our EMB-120 and climbing aboard, she headed for the first airplane she saw with a Delta logo... which was a 767 parked at the *main* terminal behind us, across a pretty active taxiway...
And about twenty of the passengers behind her *followed* her like baby ducks.
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Not on purpose, he stumbled, dropped all his s**t on the escalator and proceeded to roll, in a kind of sideways crouched position, down the up escalator. But, because it was going up, he was staying in place.
We arrived at the bottom, saved his stuff, stopped him and the escalator.
Could have been bad and I'm sure he felt it after the alcohol wore off.
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There is an older lady in front of me and it was her turn to enter the scanner. The agents tell her how to stand. She puts her feet on the shoe prints, leans forward and places her hands well above her head and on the wall. An agent yells at her asking what she thinks she is doing.
She yells back, “I thought you were telling to me to assume the position!”
The TSA agents all started laughing. Good thing I got to the airport early. That line didn’t move for a while as the agents tried to explain to her how they wanted her to stand.
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