In Flight

Bizarre, terrifying or just plain, WTF?

I was reading this article about crazy flight stories. I am glad to say that, despite all my flying, I have not experienced some of this horrific-ness!

But I do have a couple of goodies! After all, what’s the point of distorting my body on 14 hour flights in coach if I don’t have some good stories to tell…

I was on a flight from ORD to SFO. (Yes, I refer to cities by their airport codes. That would be Chicago and San Francisco for those of you not familiar.) As per typical holiday travel, the plane was fully booked with cranky people dying to be home already. Somewhere over the Dakotas, nearly all flight attendants are scurrying back and forth to the back of the plane. You could not get anybody’s attention to even get a glass of water! Not that United has such stellar service that you could get a glass of water normally… I digress. After about 30 minutes of this continued scurrying, there is an announcement made asking if there are any doctors or nurses on board the plane willing to assist with a sick passenger. That sick woman must have terrible odds in Vegas because not a single doctor or nurse on a 747! To make matters worse, we were hitting some pretty rough turbulence. Seatbelt signs turn on, pilot asks everyone to return to their seats including the flight attendants. I assume that a few of them were excused due to the sick passenger.

Apparently, there was a guy who just could not stand the fact that he was getting subpar service thanks to the sick lady. He refused to stay seated, raised his voice at multiple flight attendants about this that and the other and was just being an all around jerk. I mean, I hate being inconvenienced when flying (because when you fly as much as I do, it really is a very irate ordeal) but there is nothing worse than being close to death thirty thousand feet up in the air. The jerk became even more escalated when the pilot announced that we were making an emergency landing in DEN (Denver) due to the sick lady. This guy was huffing and puffing around and started to scare other passengers. He was warned enough times that a flight attendant threatened to have air marshalls pull him off the flight in DEN. Well, when you threaten a class A jerk, he only becomes an A+ jerk.

I have no idea what plague this woman was carrying but she really did look close to death as she was escorted off the plane. She could not walk on her own, had to rest more than a few times and threw up several times all the way down the aisle. Good grief woman! You could not have gotten on the plane perfectly healthy and ended up in your condition. Grumble grumble.

At this point, the A+ jerk is sitting, begrudgingly, buckled into his seat! Ha. A flight attendant approaches him and tells him he needs to get off the plane. Naturally, he refuses. The flight attendant already had enough of his crap from the past 3 hours or so and, very loudly, tells him that he can walk off this plane willingly or she can have the two air marshalls who are waiting on the jetway come and get him. Hahaha, take that jerk! A+ jerk stands up, grabs his bags and stomps his way out of the plane like a 5 year old having a tantrum. Applause ensues!

The remainder of the flight to SFO seemed so dull.

Another grand moment was more recent. With all of the wonderful technology we have, you can find nearly everyone on a smartphone or tablet watching movies/shows, listening to music, playing games or reading. Well, most of these wonderful gadgets do not have privacy screens built into them. And as the seats are so small and cramped, you can’t help but to catch glimpses of what everyone is doing. Well, good sirs. Please keep your porn for private use. As much as some people think that an airplane seat is “private,” you are still in public space, my friends. So watching or reading dirty stuff only makes me judge you.