Memorable Moments on an Airplane

I’ve traveled a fair bit in my time and have had more than a few moments worth remembering. Feel free to share your moments in the comment section below!

Once, when I was in high school, I went to Ketchikan to visit a friend of mine for a long weekend. The airport in Ketchikan is on an island across the bay from the main town and flying into that airport is always tricky. This particular time, it was probably the closest to crashing as I’ve ever been; the plane bucking all over the place and was nearly tossed upside down a few times, even. The poor lady sitting next to me had a death grip on the arm rests and was shouting over and over, “OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD!”

Another time I was traveling to Valdez for work when a guy tried to open the door mid-flight. He was in full-on panic mode, and it took four grown men to subdue him. The plane had to turn around and land back at the Anchorage Airport, where the guy (who, coincidently, happened to be my boss) was escorted off and we resumed our flight. He ended up driving to work that week!

When my brother was going to school down in Seattle, I decided to spend a 4-day weekend to visit him. Normal flight times from Anchorage to Seattle are roughly 5 hours – this particular flight lasted over 17 hours! As you know, Seattle has horrible weather at times, so my plane had to circle Seattle for a while in hopes that a break in the weather would allow it to land. We ran out of gas, so had to be re-routed to Vancouver to fill up. Vancouver is a foreign country, so we were not allowed off the plan at that time because no one had their passports with them. We went back to Seattle and continued to circle until we ran out of gas a second time. This time, they sent us to Denver to refuel – where they made us all get off the plane to go through Customs, because we’d been in a foreign country (even though we never got off the plane there). Then we boarded our plane again and went back to Seattle to circle some more. Sure enough, we ran out of gas a third time! They sent us to Portland this time, to refuel and restock the drinks, which by this time had bee freely flowing - before once again heading back to Seattle to circle some more. FINALLY, we got to land and get off that damned airplane. Sadly, that turned my 4-day visit in to a 2-day visit, but it was still cool to visit my brother a while.

On a flight to London one time, the guy who was seated next to me was suffering from food poisoning. Man, he looked terrible: pasty white with tinges of green around the edges. Thankfully, the flight was barely half-full so the stewardess managed to give him the back row of seats so he could lay down, and he had one of the bathrooms dedicated solely to him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more miserable person.

Coming home from Hawaii back in ’82 the airplane took off like normal, then within two or three minutes made a very sharp turn and landed again back on the runway. The pilot came on the intercom to inform us that they literally just dropped an engine. Like, it fell OFF THE PLANE! Maintenance crew transferred us to a different plan so they could reattach the engine. Thankfully our new plan made it home safely.

The best one, however, was coming home from Seattle once – I don’t remember the trip, but I certainly remember that flight. Mid-way home, some high school kid thought it would be a good idea to strip down and streak naked from the back of the plane all the way to the front and back again, all the while shrieking in a loud voice “Yeeeaaaahhhh!!!” The stewardesses grabbed him, with the help of a few passengers, and locked him up in one of the bathrooms until we landed. We were not allowed to disembark until the police came and hauled him away in handcuffs. I heard later that he actually went to jail for that little escapade.