Flight attendants might seem like they live a very glamorous life, but that's not always the case. If something goes wrong in the air, they're the ones who have to set things to rights. These are the occasions that horrified them to their core.
Stories have been edited for clarity
When The Garment Bag Was Accidental Unzipped, Its Grisly Contents Spilled Out
“This a story my grandpa told me about my grandma’s flight attendant days. About 40 years ago, she had a passenger bring on a large garment bag which they later discovered had a dead body in it when it fell and partially unzipped. It was a tiny woman’s body that was being brought back for a funeral, but the family couldn’t afford to send it the right way. I can’t even imagine.”
She Knew That Couple Would Be Trouble From Them Moment She Saw Them
“I’m not a flight attendant anymore but this is a story that’s going stay with me until the bitter end.
I knew they were going to be trouble the second I greeted this couple at the door. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but hey, I’m only human and I’d been doing this job too long to know a butthead when I saw one. The guy looked like he was around 50 years old and chronically obese with a t-shirt that ended at his belly button; as he waddled up to the door, you could see his belly flopping from side to side as if it had a life of its own. He was the kind of guy you could smell before you could see him. His wife was short and seemed kind of whacked out.
The second they got to the doors to board the plane, the woman started asking when the food was going to be served and that she wanted a bottle of water for them both. Calm down, if everyone made these demands the second they boarded, we’d never take off. I got her the water and said in the least patronizing way I could that food would be served once the plane took off.
I was working in Business on this sector and there was no way that these two were going to be my problem for much longer. Bye suckers.
Remember what I said about not judging a book by its cover? Well, turns out they were in Business Class. With me. For 13 hours.
As soon as he sat down, he wasted no time in taking off his flip-flops. Before I knew it, his wife was on her knees cutting his toenails. Click, click, off they scattered all over the floor.
Fast forward to meal service. I asked them what they wanted. He wanted beef. She wanted pasta. I went back to the galley and came back with the pasta, but she’d gone to the toilet. Fine. I left it on her tray and let the husband know it’s there for her. I went back to the galley to get the beef and came back to find him eating his wife’s food. I didn’t know what to do and assumed they’d already discussed it or something and thought nothing of it.
Not even 30 minutes later, the woman was brought up by another crew member. Apparently she got lost and couldn’t find her way back. Next thing I knew, she was complaining to the customer service manager that her food was forgotten. I told her that her husband ate it, but he denied it. The plates had been cleared in by this point and there was no dirty plate to yell, ‘AH HA!’
By this point, we’d run out of pasta and she was not pleased by this news.
Over the next few hours, we had complaints from passengers saying that the guy was burping, farting, and otherwise being gross. Sadly, there wasn’t much we could do as it was a full fight and we couldn’t move anyone around.
At one point, I walked down the aisle and he was standing on his seat looking down at the sleeping passenger next to him. He was just frozen there. I asked him if he was ok and he said he needed the toilet, but couldn’t get past the passenger next to him.
WHY DON’T YOU ASK HIM TO MOVE?
‘Shall I ask him if he minds moving his legs, sir?’
‘WELL, I SHOULD THINK SO! I’VE ONLY BEEN STANDING HERE FOR DAYS!’
I woke up the passenger, he moved his legs, but this guy still managed to trip over him and nearly crush him or smother him to death with his BO.
He took so long in the toilet I nearly had to knock on the door to see if he was ok.
Once he came out, he said he needed painkillers for his back. I said we could give him paracetamol or temgesic if the pain was that bad. At this point, he took an empty packet of heavy painkillers out of his pocket and said they were prescribed to him and he wanted those EXACT ones.
I explained to him we weren’t a pharmacy.
He was having none of it and complained to the CSM.
After all of this, I was beginning to wonder why I took up this job. It was at that moment I heard a scream from the cabin.
Give me strength.
He undressed and was walking, stark, bollock undressed, down the cabin.
His wife had once again gone off and got lost.
In the end, they were taken off the plane by the police in Singapore and it turned out they were off their mind on meds and drinks.”
She Was Worried About Their Safety, So She Was Very Strict
“I’m a flight attendant on small 50-passenger planes. When there were about 40 minutes left on the flight, I got a call from the flight deck that they have an indicator reading that my passenger door was not locked. So I double-check the physical deadbolt indicators on the door and two of the eight indicators were misaligned. So to be safe, I stopped service and sat down for the rest of the flight, directly next to the door, praying that it was an issue with the indicator up in the flight deck. I’m sure that my face was flushed for a little bit.
For the rest of the 40-minute flight, I was cracking down on every person that attempted to stand up and every seatbelt that I heard being undone. I didn’t want any unlucky people being sucked out if the door happened to suddenly fly open.
People started getting annoyed and started asking questions why the seatbelt sign has been on for so long. I just told them that the pilots think there might be some major turbulence soon. Thankfully, all was well and we landed with no issue. A few people getting off the plane were telling me how terrible the experience was and how badly they had to go to the bathroom and I wouldn’t let them. If only they knew…C’est la vie.”
When The Overhead Bins Opened, Some Unexpected Pests Came Raining Down
“My mom is a flight attendant. She has a load of crazy stories over 30 years on the job, but there’s one in particular that has always haunted me.
It was a transatlantic flight (EU > US) and halfway through the flight near the back of the plane, the overhead bin started raining maggots on the passengers in one row. One of the other flight attendants on the plane investigated and discovered that a passenger had flown in from Africa. He 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.”
No Pressure, Right?
“My mother was a flight attendant for Continental a while back. During a domestic flight, one of the seals on a rear door either broke or came loose and she and another flight attendant had to hold it closed until they could make an emergency landing. She said it was so loud that she thought she was going to lose her hearing, and the sudden pressure change probably didn’t help.”
One Sick Kid Started A Disgusting Chain Reaction
“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.
Another time, on approach to Denver, we were struck by lightning. It was the loudest sound I’ve ever heard on a flight. I was on a Boeing 727 with a flight attendant friend on the back jumpseat and all of the passengers turned to look at us. We were hugging each other and crying, terrified, which, as it turns out, only makes the passenger panic 1,000 times worse. But the plane was fine and we landed safely.”
When The Flight Attendants Tell You To Sit, You Should Sit
“This was back in the ’90s on a flight from London Heathrow to Orlando. There was quite a bit of turbulence and the seatbelt signs were on. I could hear a woman somewhere behind us arguing with the other flight attendants. They were telling her to sit down and she was saying her child was feeling sick and weren’t they going to do something?
Anyway, next thing I know, she was running down the aisle past me, carrying two small plastic cups of vomit. The plane hit an air pocket and lurched. The woman went flying forward onto her face, vomit went all over everyone in the vicinity.”
All She Wanted Was To Sit With Her Adult Son
“One flight was delayed because one woman traveling with her 30-year-old son didn’t want to take their separated seats during a two-hour flight. They ended up stealing a seat of a mother traveling with her 5-year-old kid. The flight was full and the woman refused to give back the seats that were allocated for the mother with a kid, using the excuse that she cannot be separated 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 takeoff. Other passengers tried to explain that to her, but she still decided not to move. The flight supervisor ended up asking people to swap seats and trying to find her two seats together while the aircraft was on the ground. All 189 passengers were waiting for this lady who couldn’t handle her adult son being seated a few rows behind her for a short amount of time.”
A Woman Who Claimed To Be A Psychic Told Them The Plane Was Going To Crash
“I was a flight attendant for three years, back in the late-2000s for Northwest Airlines (now merged with Delta Airlines).
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 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. A couple other flight attendants couldn’t help but cry. 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.
The experience was so awful that the passengers and crew members all received a flight voucher (the crew got a check for the same value). I think it was worth about $350.”
They Treated The Plane Like Their Own Personal Party Pad
“We were flying from Moscow to Bangkok. The flight was 90 percent Russians, as to be expected with the rest connecting. There was a large crowd traveling together, mostly burly men but also a few ladies and some elders. I’m guessing it was a wedding group. The group bought multiple bottles. Things progressed from doing shots to bottles being finished to asking them to keep the noise down, to people openly smoking on the flight. They played music through a portable speaker that was loud. It was full party mode and nothing could be done as they were all much bigger than all staff on board. Three men had a fist fight, one of the old ladies was vomiting. It’s the craziest flight I’ve ever witnessed. There was a total of seven arrests upon landing.”
At Least Someone Cleaned Up After The Fact
“The grossest story I have was when someone smeared poop all over one of the bathrooms during a 14-hour flight to China. It smelled putrid. We put up an ‘out of order’ sign up, 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.”
She Looked Outside The Window And Saw Another Plane, Worryingly Close
“I’ve had a few hairy incidents, but the one that stands out for me was a time we were cleared for takeoff out of SFO (San Fransisco). I was in the back and just as we started down the runway, the engines cut off. The plane suddenly braked hard and made a quick turn off on to a taxiway. As they made the turn, I looked out the window next to me (no, I wasn’t in my proper seating position). I looked down the runway trying to figure out what’s wrong and saw a rather large 747 cross on one of the runways ahead of us. We sat there stopped for a little while, then our Captain called back, asking if we’re OK. We eventually made our way back around and took off.
When we deplaned later, I asked the pilots what happened and they told us we were wrongly cleared for takeoff. Due to some work being done next to the taxiway, there was some fencing and construction vehicles that obscured part of their view to the right. As they cleared the fencing, the flight officer saw the approaching 747 coming in on one of the crossing runways and initiated an abort and diverted down an exit on to an empty taxiway. They had some choice words for air traffic control and were obviously upset considering they said nobody in ATC called for any kind of abort or seemed aware what had just transpired. That was my worst in my opinion. Of course, skidding on ice landing in DEN (Denver) in winter and feeling a 737 fishtail makes you feel uneasy a bit.”
He Always Gave The Flight Attendants A Little Show
“I am a former flight attendant. I worked for a small regional airline where there was only one flight attendant per flight (50-seater planes). There was a notorious passenger who would line up first to ensure he sat in the front row in the aisle seat. He purposely wore baggy shorts and no underwear with his foot up, giving all the flight attendant a shot of his old, saggy balls. Towards the end of my reign as an FA, I got the pleasure of having his company on my flight. He was a total scumbag!”
The Poor Lady Found Out About The Affair On The Job
“I’m not a flight attendant, but this happened to one who was helping me.
I was on crutches and they called a flight attendant who was scheduled for a different flight later to wheel me on to the plane since she was waiting around.
She was helping me get in my seat when she saw her husband with another woman sucking on his face. Sitting together on the plane. In matching shirts.
From what I gathered from the screaming match that erupted, he told her he was going away on business to some other place than where this plane was headed.
The cheapskate didn’t even pony up for a different airline because he could fly for free because of his wife.
The worst part? Her supervisor led her off the plane and, as he was chastising her, he told her she would likely lose her job over the ‘public display.’
I hope she didn’t. I spoke to the supervisor on her behalf to try and explain, but who knows.”
Things Got So Bad, She Took A Break
“My mom was a flight attendant for more than 20 years. When she was pregnant with me, one of her flights was hit extreme unexpected turbulence. She was able to grab onto something at the last second, but other flight attendants/people not wearing their seatbelt were injured, and her one co-worker severely broke her tailbone. She decided to stop flying until after I was born after that incident.
Another time (before I was born), she was in a plane that almost collided with another plane mid-air. She was sitting in her flight attendant seat (not by a window) at the time, so she didn’t see it, but passengers said they could see the faces of the other people in the plane going by. The two planes were set for a head-on collision, but luckily the oncoming plane decided to divert to the side at the last second.
Then, of course, there was 9/11, when all the flights were grounded and cell phones weren’t working. My stepdad drove to North Carolina from Tampa Bay, Florida to get her, but some of her friends working overseas flights were stranded in other countries for a while. She worked United, so she knew some of the flight attendants in the planes that crashed. And it was scary for me since I heard about what happened before finding out if she was okay.”
Her Worst Flight Ever Came About Because Of Negligent Parents
“I had so many terrible shifts that it is hard to decide which was the worst. I absolutely hated being a flight attendant.
About a week before I eventually quit, I picked up a trip to Tel Aviv out of JFK (New York City) even though I was based out of SFO (San Fransisco). Anyway, the flight back to JFK was exhausting, but not too bad except for the Federal Air Marshal that would not stop hitting on me in the galley. There was a family of four with two small children, however, that spent the entire flight feeding their kids candy and soda.
We landed at JFK, and I fought my way through customs in time to catch the next flight back to SFO. Unfortunately, the flight was fully booked which meant I had to commute the 6-hour flight home on the jump seat in the back. The working FA back there was a meanie to me even though I tried my best to stay out of his way. Anyway, halfway through the flight, I noticed that the family of four from the TLV flight was sitting in the back cabin still feeding their kids candy and soda.
Sure enough, not long after this, one of the children threw up, which in turn made the other one puke. And then, the two brats started running up and down the aisle, projectile vomiting everywhere. The FA in the back could not handle the situation. He was running around, panicking, and other passengers who had been puked on were starting to get sick, too. The parents couldn’t care less and did not even look up from their magazines while chaos was breaking loose.
So even though I was not working and was completely exhausted from working all night and having to commute six hours to get home, I ended up having to clean it all up just to make the smell go away. I remember sprinkling liquid solidifier powder on these random children’s vomit and scraping it off the carpet and realizing I was DONE being a flight attendant. You could not pay me enough to ever have to do that again, and the worst thing was, I wasn’t getting paid for that flight. I quit about a week later to start grad school and a new career. Best decision I ever made.”
It Wasn’t Just The Babies That Made That Flight A Nightmare
“I’m not a flight attendant, but I’d imagine this would have to be in the top three of that poor lady’s days.
I was flying back to Dubai after spending some time in India on an Emirates flight.
Being the cheap-o I am, I flew Economy back, despite knowing that Emirates doesn’t care too much about these routes.
First off, there were babies every other seat and all of them decided to subject the rest of the plane to their awful symphony of screams and wails. Then one baby screamed so hard, it projectile vomited all over the seat in front of it.
This poor flight attendant had to come over, clean up the seat (because the mom was completely useless), as well as deal with the complaints of the guy who was sitting in the seat that got vomit-blasted. The smell in the plane was probably one of the worst things to have hit my olfactory senses.
The flight only went downhill from there.
Because of some onboard technical glitch, the in-flight entertainment kept freezing up/not being responsive and she had to pacify every person who was insisting for their seats to be changed on a full flight.
Once food was served, those babies started an impromptu food fight, throwing EVERYTHING across the plane and again, the parents (save for few) wouldn’t bat an eyelid as their precious muffin catapulted peas into the face of an elderly gentleman who was simply trying to sleep.
Towards the end of the flight, some dude got wasted and grabbed that flight attendant’s butt as she walked by. Then he stumbled his way to the galley, screaming at the top of his lungs for more drinks.
By this time, a male flight attendant made his way to this part of the plane and hauled that dude’s butt right back to his seat.
I feel like that poor woman was in tears by the time she crossed immigration.”
