Flying is adventurous.
You might be en route to an exotic location or you might witness a wild in-aisle experience that goes viral on social media.
Maybe it’s the thin 30,000-foot air or the fact that you’re travelling upwards of 900 km/h, but the fact is that weird things happen on planes.
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So buckle up for a turbulent ride through the skies as we recount some of the most jaw-dropping moments that unfolded on flights in 2023.
From bizarre passengers to pretty gross stains, here are some things that stand out on planes.
All aboard the vomit comet
In late August, two women were removed from an Air Canada flight headed to Montreal after complaining about vomit stains and stench in their seating area.
Susan Benson, another passenger who was seated behind them, detailed what happened in a long Facebook post.
She told Daily Hive she was heading back to her home province of New Brunswick after enjoying Adele’s live concert in Las Vegas.
However, what was supposed to be a five-hour flight turned into a disaster for the passengers sitting in front of her.
Benson took to Facebook to document the situation.
The year’s infamous viral plane incident
The way the whole plane looked back lmao pic.twitter.com/bLiUAN8kuk
— Lance🇱🇨 (@Bornakang) July 3, 2023
A woman went big-time viral after calling out a fellow American Airlines passenger for being “not real.”
The clip spawned a sea of wild theories, jokes, and memes after American Airlines confirmed the woman was ejected from the flight.
The original video, uploaded by TikToker @knuckelslawncare, got over 100 million views spread out across various social media platforms.
The woman, Tiffany Gomas, later claimed she did not see an alien or a shapeshifter — as many theories suggested — but that it was merely a “cringe” moment that was caught on camera.
The crappiest flight
A Delta Airlines Airbus A350 turned around back to Atlanta Friday night because of diarrhea throughout the airplane from a passenger and it’s a biohazard. 👀🥴
The FAA flight strip for DL194 was posted to Reddit (📷xStang05x) Also a passenger posted here asking why her son’s… pic.twitter.com/VWbkB47wF1
— Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) September 3, 2023
A Delta Airlines flight was forced to turn around in September after a passenger experienced severe diarrhea.
It sounds like something out of the film Bridesmaids, but it was unfortunately the reality for the 336 passengers on Delta Flight 194 on September 1.
An aviation enthusiast on X found the audio transmission between the pilots and air traffic control from liveATC.com.
The Airbus A350 was headed from Atlanta, Georgia, to Barcelona, Spain, when it had to divert two hours into the flight, according to data from Flightradar24.
Delta Airlines told Daily Hive that the flight returned to Atlanta “following an onboard medical issue.” The airline didn’t delve into specifics, but the aforementioned audio transmission revealed the crappy details.
“This is a biohazard issue,” a pilot told air traffic control. “We’ve had a passenger who’s had diarrhea all the way through the airplane, so they want us to come back to Atlanta.”
Not a very Swift flight…
A Canadian woman’s LA trip to see Taylor Swift in concert resulted in her losing thousands of dollars after her flight was cancelled.
Meagan O’Connor, 24, is a retail worker who lives in Squamish, BC. She and her sister had scored tickets to Taylor Swift’s concert in LA. They were scheduled to fly with Flair Airlines from Vancouver International Airport (YVR) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) this past August. They had also booked a rental car at their destination to make it easier to get around the city.
“We had a 7 am flight from YVR to LAX for the day before the Taylor Swift concert, and we took off at 7 am,” O’Connor told Daily Hive. “Then halfway to LA, the pilot comes on and is like, ‘We’re turning back to YVR due to a lavatory issue.’ Basically, the toilet wasn’t flushing.”
All in all, O’Connor says she spent thousands of dollars after multiple airline mishaps.
The entire expensive adventure can be found right here.
Something is in the air
@mzzgina13‘Love is literally in the Air ❤️❤️♬ original sound – GYNATAE WITH THE TEZZ & TEA
One man took the term “love is in the air” literally after popping the big question to his partner mid-flight.
In a viral TikTok posted by @mzzgina13, a man can be seen proposing to his girlfriend right after she came out of using the plane’s toilet.
All of the plane’s passengers seemed to be involved in the gesture, many of whom also had their cameras out to record the entire proposal.
A chance of Rainn
View this post on Instagram
Actor Rainn Wilson shared a video of his unassuming seatmate on a flight watching The Office, unknowingly sitting next to the show’s very own Dwight Shrute.
Documented via an Instagram Story in April, Wilson captioned his viral video, “When the person sitting next to you has no idea who you are…” incognito under his mask and cap.
Being a giant Basshole
A former player for the Toronto Blue Jays found himself the target of ridicule on social media after publicly complaining about his family’s experience on a domestic flight, where in-flight crews refused to clean up after his messy children.
Anthony Bass, a former pitcher for the Jays, tweeted a photo of his young children aboard a United Airlines flight — the floor around them littered with popcorn kernels — calling out the airline for asking his pregnant wife to clean up after their daughters.
Bass’ tweet was immediately criticized by then-Twitter commenters, accusing the pitcher of privilege and entitlement for expecting others to clean up after his kids (in what appear to be coach seats).
Read some of the responses to the pitcher, calling him both entitled and privileged, right here.
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