“She Was Screaming The Entire Time”: 50 Horrific Things To Have Happened On Flights

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!!!!!

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.

When I was 17 I was in a plane crash, my dad was the pilot, we were flying home from a baseball tournament I was in, he owned a Beechcraft Bonanza, a single engine propeller plane. While we were at 13k feet the propeller stopped dead. It was 8pm, dark enough where you couldnt really tell where open fields were or forests. He radioed into the nearest airport and declared emergency landing, but we didn't make it, we went down about 5 miles in front of the airport.

We knew we wouldnt make it to the airport once we were about at 6k feet, he radioed in and ATC said it was a big open field in front of the runway, aim for it and they will have fire and rescue ready, but we didn't make it that far, when we were about 200 feet off the ground we see the tree tops shooting back up at us and he says "f**k" I still don't really remember what happened after that, but clearly we were extremely lucky, the wings got torn off on both sides from trees we hit, but after sliding through the forest floor for about 60 yards we hit a tree head on, but at that point we were going maybe 30mph.

We both walked away, he broke his nose and I had a cut on my face from the glass, but other than that we were totally fine. Fire and rescue was at the crash maybe 5 minutes later, they told us they thought this was going to be a body retreval, so they were very suprised to see us standing there laughing and crying.

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 got my very first period on a plane in white cargo pants flying from Ohio to California

My baby did a projectile s**t all over the toilet wall while I was changing her nappy. The was s**t everywhere. S**tcano. There was somehow more s**t 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 S**T". 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!

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.

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 f*****g no where to go.

Mine is nothing compared to these stories. I thought an old woman s**t herself only to find out my dad was letting out silent farts the entire f****n flight. I almost punched him

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.

I was sexually harrassed by the passenger next to me- the police had to escort him off the plane when we landed

Captain here. 2 hours in on an early flight the in charge FA advises us we have run out of coffee.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."