The Craziest Things Airline Workers Have Ever Seen On The Job

Don't Drink And Tow Aircraft

"Worked as ground crew. 2nd day on the job we were issued a notice to gather."

"So when you check in every morning you’re supposed to always take a breathalyzer test to prove you can like you know, ride around the tarmack, use pushbacks on planes, etc..."

"For whatever reason this dude hadn’t taken it/got past without taking it."

"He was not sober."

"He was tasked with pulling a 370 [aircraft] into a hangar."

"He eyeballed it for whatever reason."

"So here we are watching a video of this absolute loon break the whole wing off while damaging the hangar in the process."

"Because he was drunk, insurance doesn’t kick in."

"We were promptly told that Christmas bonuses might be a bit smaller."

~ ProbablyChe

Occupational Hazard

"Someone had the tip of their finger cut off when closing the door to the plane and didn't say anything until the flight landed at the arrival gate and when the door was opened the chunk of finger fell out."

"The staff then said, 'Oh yeah, that's my finger. you can throw it away'."

"I guess he just bandaged and wrapped his own hand."

"It was about 1/4 of his finger including the nail that was cut off. The cutoff portion wasn't particularly bloody and it was really pale."

~ If_I_remember

"A plane I got on once almost left without half of its aircrew on it."

~ BeerisAwesome01

"'Let’s just go, they can meet us there'."

~ InformativePenguin

"Plot twist. That included the pilots."

~ Windyandbreezy

Excess Baggage

"Coffin with dead body inside being left off the flight due to overload without notice either to us or the family and the family realising it by seeing it while the plane was leaving and screaming to us."

~ elenivog

Noped Out

"Saw the pilot walk into the passenger area and say 'I'm not flying this piece of sh*t' and get off the plane."

"All the passengers followed him."

~ Jaded-Session8422

"Hell yeah, I'm following the pilot off the plane if something like this happens!"

~ lukaron

"I had something similar happen, but never got on the plane."

"It was sitting there seemingly ready but they never started boarding."

"Eventually the pilots walk off the plane and a few of us heard them say ‘This junk isn’t going anywhere’."

"Flight ended up getting cancelled a short time later."

~ potatocross

"I was threatened with [pilots walking out] multiple times a week as an aircraft dispatcher."

"Auxiliary power units (APUs) run the air conditioning (AC) in the aircraft and they were always broken down and not fixed quickly, so when the pilots show up it is hot as hell inside and there's no ground crew to connect the external AC."

"So I would get a call from the Captain telling me he is not going to fly this piece of shit because it is too hot."

"Then they'd go on a tirade about how bad the company sucks because they don't do maintenance."

"I would agree with them completely."

"Then by the end of the call they'd say they will take it but the company sucks and needs to fix the APU."

"Occasionally the captain would refuse it, but then the ground crew would hook up the AC and they would always get back inside and fly it."

"For sure there were issues that popped up where the AC had an unsolvable issue and it would result in a cancelled flight."

~ Winchery

"I’m Dallas-Fort Worth based. No APU/AC in November? Meh, whatever."

"No APU/AC in August in Texas?"

"I’m not going on that airplane. Ground just can’t keep up."

~ poser765

☣️ Bio-Hazard ☣️

"Flight diverted to my airport because a girl in hotpants got uncontrollable diarrhea from the laxatives she took before the flight to help get over her weekend binge in Vegas."

"She sh*t in her seat and down the aisle and all over the bathroom."

"Five other passengers had uncontrollable vomiting because of this and the panic on the plane from the crew and rest of passengers caused the plane to make an emergency landing."

"They ended up having to cancel the remaining leg of the flight to decontaminate the plane."

"Police were sent and interviewed her and her friends and no charges were filed. I don't know if the airline put her on any kind of no-fly list or tried to have her pay for damages."

~ If_I_remember

Highly Unsuccessful

"There were two suitcases checked in that were full of nothing but weed."

"The police arrested him in the gating area & confiscated the bags."

~ Traditional_Pair4840

"Something similar happened when I was a ramp rat back in the 1960s."

"Law enforcement was going to do the arrest at his destination."

"The weed disappeared before they got there."

~ endadaroad

Stealthiest Catch

"As a baggage handler I once had a shipment of live Alaskan crabs escape their container on the ramp."

"Flights were delayed."

"Turns out those guys scatter when they panic and try to hide under anything and everything."

~ Gregwaaah

"My significant other worked doing maintenance checks on commercial planes."

"This explains why they once found a bunch of dead crabs under the floorboards in the cargo bay. It was a mysterious mystery."

~ Highly_Referential

Avoiding A Strip Search?

"A fully naked woman just walked through the terminal and tried to walk through security like she wasn’t fully naked."

~ Commercial-Chance561

"She was just very considerately trying to make it easier for TSA."

~ TrooperJohn

"They make you take off your shoes but they don't say that's all you can take off."

~ smartguy05

Language Barrier

"I witnessed this in the security screening of a large American airport."

"And to be fair, there was a language barrier as the passenger in question seemed to be speaking mainly French, and struggling to understand the TSA agent's instructions in English."

"Female passenger (tall, attractive, and sophisticated-looking) was wearing a business suit with a pencil skirt and matching jacket, which was buttoned closed, going through security."

"The TSA agent told her she had to remove the jacket. She ignored and tried to go through anyway."

"He stopped her and told her again more loudly (that's when everyone started noticing)."

"She said no. He insisted. She refused again, and tried to walk through."

"He got angry."

"She tried to explain something but it was unclear because her English was poor."

"It went back and forth."

"They both started getting angry and frustrated. It started holding up the line and other passengers were getting agitated."

"A few people tried to intervene and explain more calmly that she needed to put her jacket through the x-ray machine."

"Finally, near tears, she blurted out 'fine' and removed her jacket, revealing that she was wearing nothing at all underneath, and walked through the screening machine topless."

~ SigmaSeal66

I'm a nervous flyer so it's not something I do often, but I still feel a little cheated that nothing this bizarre has happened while I was traveling.

Has something ever happened during your travels?

Share it in the comments.