- [Narrator] Even on the best days, flying can be a real hassle. It's cramped, and there's
always either a baby crying or someone's staggering into you on their way to the restroom. But those minor inconveniences are nothing compared to the heights of horror some flights have soared to. I'm talking the kind of horror that makes those stinky feet
propped up behind your head seem like a wonderful gift. So go ahead and strap
yourself in for turbulence, because here are some of the worst things to happen on airplanes. (upbeat music) Unexpected guest. Passengers on an Aeromexico
flight from Torreon, Mexico to Mexico City had the
fright of their lives in November, 2016 when
some unapproved cargo made itself known mid-flight. Indalecio Medina, one of the passengers, was reading a magazine
when the person next to him gasped and pointed at the
overhead luggage compartment. Like a scene straight out of
the Samuel Jackson thriller "Snakes on a Plane", Indalecio
saw a three-feet long venomous green viper wriggling above them. The surrounding passengers
hastily unbuckled themselves to get clear of the snake just
as it dropped onto the floor and slithered in between the seats. Using blankets provided
by flight attendants, several brave passengers
managed to trap the viper between rows five and six
before it could hurt anybody. After the pilot radioed ahead, the plane was given priority
landing in Mexico City where it touched down 10 minutes later. Even though the viper
was safely contained, passengers were evacuated
out of the rear of the plane, and animal control came on board to take the scaly stowaway into custody. Aeromexico did launch an investigation into how the snake had
gotten into the cabin, but their findings were never made public. At least we know
Aeromexico takes good care of all its passengers, regardless of whether they paid airfare. Not only did the flight attendants give the snake multiple blankets, but it also got its own priority landing and a personal escort off the aircraft. Stand aside, Samuel Jackson, it looks like the real star has arrived. Big bang. Picture this: You're up in the clouds and want to take a photo of the view. But when you turn to the
window, you see this. Horrifying, right? Well that image of a plane
engine, which lost its paneling mid-flight back in 2008,
might be pretty alarming, but it's nothing on
something that happened in February, 2021. Passengers were just
settling into their flight from Denver, Colorado to Hawaii when a bang came from the
right side of the plane. Straight away, the
aircraft started to shake and they were rapidly losing altitude. Passengers were so frightened, some of them put their wallets
in their pockets to be ID'd in case they crashed and didn't survive. So what was the cause of the bang? As the passengers looked out the window, they were horrified to see
the right-hand engine ablaze and stripped of its casing. The pilot announced that
the plane had suffered an unexplained engine failure, and they'd promptly be
returning to Denver. Miraculously, all 241 people
on board walked away unscathed. Although the same can't
be said for the homes of some unlucky citizens
in Broomfield, Colorado. Why? Well, when the blazing
engine we've just seen lost its casing, gravity sent
it hurdling to the ground like a Frisbee, and
while most other debris was obliterated upon impact, the main casing ring was
found surprisingly intact in one homeowner Kirby
Klements's front yard. Kirby said he initially thought it was his neighbor's trampoline
that had blown over the wall. And only realized it was
something way crazier when he went outside. Another local homeowner
said he was making himself a sandwich when a piece of debris came crashing through his kitchen ceiling. I think it's safe to say he
lost his appetite after that. Luckily though, other
than a couple of cases of property damage, no
citizens were actually injured. As for what caused the engine
to initially catch fire, the airline never released an explanation. Most likely, a rotating
part, such as a turbine blade broke off and pierced the outer casing, resulting in the failure. Or perhaps an unfortunate
bird was sucked up into the engine, having
been considerably less lucky than those 241 humans onboard. Dead-stick landing. In September, 2016, Mark
Pennell was enjoying a leisurely flight in his Rans S-10 Sakota above Camillus, New York
when his single-engine plane all of a sudden lost its propeller. (propeller whirring) Luckily, Mark had
undergone adequate training for a dead-stick landing, a
landing in which the propeller is rendered useless, or in
this case, totally absent. But amazingly, Mark didn't even notice the propeller was missing,
and instead just assumed there was something wrong
with it or the engine. At 7,000 feet above the
ground, Mark was focused solely on the nearby Weedsport airport, and whether he had
enough altitude to land. He knew he had to pitch the
plane for the best glide speed, which allowed it to cover the
farthest distance possible from his altitude. Not knowing the propeller was missing, Mark repeatedly tried
to restart the engine, which was actually still
buzzing away propellerless. (engine buzzing) It was only after he
landed and stepped back to examine the plane that he noticed the real cause of the problem. Mark was in disbelief and a little ashamed as he realized he hadn't secured the bolts as tightly as the plane's
instructions suggested when he first put on the propeller. As far as where the
wayward propeller ended up, Mark tried looking for
it, but never found it. Hopefully, nobody tried
to catch it down below. Aviation bonfire. Anthony Carrio was ready to
have the summer of his life in Ibiza in July, 2018, when the plane that was
meant to take him there ended up being evacuated
before it even left the runway. The Boeing 737 was all set
to depart from Barcelona when a worrying spark burst into life somewhere down Anthony's row. He looked over to see a phone
attached to a battery pack blazing on the floor by
another passenger's feet. And being a true man of the modern age, he whipped out his phone to film it. But don't worry, that's
not all Anthony did. While the passengers around him
were scrambling to evacuate, Anthony took it upon himself
to extinguish the fire with a cup of water,
which stopped the flames before the lithium battery
could horrifically explode. Anthony ended up sharing
the ordeal on social media where he also posted a video of himself sliding down the emergency
exit of the plane. According to him, it was
fun getting to evacuate without there being an actual emergency. But unlike Anthony, the airline
Ryanair, wasn't as thrilled. The airline voiced its
disapproval regarding the use of battery packs on planes, and said that when taking one onboard, it should either be switched
off or packaged in a way to prevent contact with metal objects. And this is because lithium-ion batteries contain volatile chemicals, separated by a permeable
membrane, which if compromised, whether due to damage, compression
or a manufacturing fault, can lead to the rupture
and ignition of the battery and its chemicals. I mean, that's enough to
convince me, and you know, you could always just try
the super neat life hack of actually charging your
phone before you fly. Speaking of life hacks,
why not hack your way into discovering all the best
content by liking this video and subscribing to Be Amazed. And don't forget to press the bell so you don't miss any
of my latest uploads. Now let's take off to the next
horrifying plane experience. Psychic passenger. For Redditor, MysticCurse, there's a reason one particular
flight in October, 2009 marked his last as a flight attendant for Northwest Airlines in the U.S. For starters, the two-hour
flight between Minneapolis and Detroit had a self-proclaimed psychic among the passengers who
immediately took it upon herself to loudly announce the
plane's imminent doom. She not only shouted that
the plane was going to crash, but also that everyone
onboard was going to die. The rowdy psychic unsettled
passengers to such an extent, MysticCurse had to move
her to a private section of the plane. But just as he managed
to subdue the crazy lady, something extremely unnerving happened. The plane encountered
some severe turbulence. Drinks flew through the air
and luggage crashed down from overhead bins. It was a horrible scene
and looked an awful lot like the psychic's prediction. But eventually, after
what felt like forever, the plane reached Detroit, only
the horror wasn't over yet. And I don't just mean
because they were in Detroit. Not only was the runway
completely iced over, but the entire plane slid
sideways when touching down. Amid all the screams,
MysticCurse awaited the plane to flip over, but it didn't. And as they finally came to a stop, every passenger on the
plane burst into applause. Right away, airport
security boarded the plane and detained the psychic who
had caused everyone on board to collectively poop their pants with her half-true prophecy. And MysticCurse, being totally shaken up, quit as soon as the plane was unloaded. Honestly, I don't know
which part of the story is the scariest. The fact that the plane almost flipped, or that everyone on board
became touchdown clappers. Aerial maneuvers in the dark. In 1997, a Redditor with
the username Former_F16 was flying in the Middle East
for Operation Southern Watch, an air-centric military
operation conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense. It was his third day
patrolling the no fly-zone as part of a two-plane deployment, and they were set to take
off at 11 o'clock at night. The brief and aircraft
inspection all went normally until the time came for Former_F16 to align his inertial
navigation system, or INS, which is used to continuously
calculate the position, orientation and velocity of
the plane without the need for external references. When he entered the coordinates for where the plane was located, he accidentally entered
for the western hemisphere instead of eastern. With an incorrect entry like
that, the INS would accept it, but the plane would stall
as soon as it got going, seeing as the gyroscope
wouldn't be able to match the coordinates with the
plane's actual angle. Former-F16 immediately realized his error, but luckily there were
numerous other delays which allowed him time to realign it. After two hours extra
waiting on the runway, they finally set off, and
everything was going great until they entered some
ominous looking weather 2000 feet above the ground,
and the INS glitched out with the re-inputted entries,
losing the coordinates. Being at a 45-degree
climb with no visibility and his main navigation
system rendered useless, Former_F16 had the choice to
either maintain that angle until he got out of the weather or to rely on his standby
altitude indicator, a manual device measuring
the plane's orientation, and continue the departure as briefed. The Redditor chose the latter option, even though in the
quickly darkening night, he couldn't properly see the indicator to determine the angle to level out. His first indication that
things were not going well was when the sound of
wind bashing at the planes started to increase. At this point, Former_F16
had no idea which way was up or what altitude his
aircraft was flying at. Ultimately, he began
thinking he'd have to eject, as he was trained to do
in that very situation. But the Redditor didn't want to give up. So instead of ejecting, he
reached back and flicked as many of the plane's internal
light switches as he could. As the floodlights lit up the cockpit, including the standby altitude indicator, Former_F16 saw to his horror that he was not only 170
degrees off the angle he'd thought he was, but his nose was pointing at the ground. In milliseconds, he attempted
to calculate how much altitude he'd have to recover to save the jet and without raising the nose so high, he'd risk blacking out from the G-forces. So he pulled up and started to level out. According to his math, he'd
completely leveled at 1500 feet, which was more than enough
to continue on safely. It was all going great until
he looked out the window and spotted the ground
rapidly approaching. As it turned out, he'd
done his math wrong. Instead of leveling out at
1500 feet above the ground, he was about to do so 500
feet below the ground. With certain death seeming eminent, the Redditor decided he wouldn't
even have time to eject. Instead, he closed his eyes,
pulled hard on the stick while lighting the afterburner
in an attempt to pull upwards while saying his last goodbyes
to his wife in his head. Seconds passed and suddenly
to his unimaginable belief, he could tell he was climbing. When he opened his eyes, he
realized he'd passed the ground with a mere 20 feet to spare. Awe struck, Former_F16 broke
through the bad weather, realigned his INS and
caught up to the other jet. When he told the other
pilot about what happened over the intercom, Former_F16
was pleased to hear a response that said, "Hey, what happens
in-flight, stays in-flight." And that was until they
returned to the base. Apparently, a couple of airmen had seen his afterburner scorch the ground and reported it, thinking it
might've been an enemy attack. Even so, Former_F16 walked away from his terrifying
experience with little more than a slap on the wrist, and most likely, a pair
of ruined underpants. Smokey heights. In March, 2018, WestJet Flight 3161 was five minutes from the
Nanaimo Airport in Canada when the cabin began to
fill with a smokey haze. One of the passengers
notified a flight attendant who went to check the
situation with the pilot. Minutes passed in which
everyone just sat there, breathing in the gassy smelling air, and painstakingly counting
down the minutes to touchdown. Soon, an announcement was made that mentioned an emergency landing. And as you can see in
the footage captured, people grew increasingly
tense inside the cabin. - [Female] All right,
everyone, please stay seated. I know this is a very stressful situation, but the boys have everything
in control up front. They are going to let us know if we need to emergency evacuate the airplane, so please, please just stay seated. As soon as the boys know what's going on, they're going to let us
know and we'll let you know. Thank you so much. - [Narrator] You can probably
imagine the dread you'd feel following an announcement like that. Soon, the pilot confirmed, they were making an emergency landing. And once on the ground, the
tension continued to escalate as everyone sought a quick exit. - [Pilot] Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. - [Man] Which side? - [Male] In the back I guess, closest. (people chattering) - [Female] Leave everything, okay? - [Man] Plane could blow up. Go ahead, go ahead. (passengers chattering) - [Narrator] Panic-stricken
passengers were evacuated onto a closed runway, and emergency crews
arrived shortly afterwards, who inspected the plane
while all passengers were evaluated by paramedics. Thankfully, despite the general
panic, everyone was fine. Though, some passengers
couldn't help but wonder why oxygen masks weren't deployed. It turns out, according to WestJet, as the aircraft involved
was only certified to a maximum altitude of 25,000 feet, it wasn't considered necessary to equip it with dropdown oxygen masks, which are typically used
in much higher altitudes where the air is thinner. Still, that doesn't provide much comfort, considering how passengers
might've suffocated from the smoke had it been spewing out when they weren't so close
to their destination. As for what caused the smoke, WestJet did launch an
investigation into the matter, but just like asking someone if they'd tooted in an elevator, they never publicized their findings. All we know for sure is, being stuck in an enclosed,
cramped, metal airplane filling with mysterious smoke
is the stuff of nightmares, and something no one on board
would ever want to repeat. Destination destruction. Looking at this American Airlines plane, you'd think it took a
nose dive to the ground. But the gnarly amount
of damage it sustained actually came from
something far more unusual. In June, 2018, Jesus
Esparza boarded flight 1897 from San Antonio, Texas
to Phoenix, Arizona. What was supposed to be
a quick two-hour journey soon turned out to be the
scariest flight of his life. Not long after takeoff, the plane started rocking
from side to side, as it entered a huge thunderstorm, complete with huge hailstones that battered the plane's exterior. Babies screamed as
lightning flashed outside. And as the turbulence got worse, the woman behind Jesus
threw up into her barf bag. Then suddenly, the plane dropped so hard, objects in people's laps were
sent flying inside the plane. After several horrifying minutes
of being pummeled by hail, the plane emerged from the storm. The pilot announced that he'd
be making an emergency landing in El Paso to deal with some damage, which was a huge understatement, because unbeknownst to Jesus
and his fellow passengers, the entire nose of the
plane had been obliterated. What's more, the windshield
was so badly shattered, the pilots had to land
the plane virtually blind. Luckily, the plane landed safely with all 135 people on board uninjured. And despite the happy ending, Jesus stated that after he saw
the plane from the outside, he decided not to travel
again anytime soon. All things considered, I don't blame him. Faulty landing gear. Redditor, Acacia Wildwood,
couldn't believe his sister still worked as a flight attendant after she told him her
scariest inflight story. In the early 2000s, she was working a pretty uneventful flight
from Hawaii to California, when just as they reached
their destination, things started to go wrong. The pilot was doing the
routine pre-landing checks and shockingly discovered that the landing gear wasn't deploying. After circling the airport
to burn off extra fuel that could potentially explode
on impact with the ground, and with emergency personnel
put into place at the airport, the plane began its descent. Acacia Wildwood's sister was sitting in a flight attendant seat up front when she made eye contact
with a flight mechanic that happened to be on board. The mechanic looked in her eyes, and knowing the impossible odds of landing gear miraculously
starting to work again midair, he gave her a shake of his head, letting her know the
situation was extremely dire. The forces acting on people's bodies from the impact of landing
on the plane's underbelly would be huge, and most
likely devastating. As they were landing, the
flight attendants yelled at the passengers to brace themselves. As they all got in position for impact, Acacia Wildwood's sister really thought she'd never see her family again. Miraculously though, at
the very last moment, the landing gear deployed, saving the plane from
landing on its belly. Everyone made it out safely. When Acacia Wildwood's sister
finally left the plane, she was understandably reluctant to get back on it the next day. But her husband told her over the phone that if she didn't make that return trip, she'd almost certainly never
have the capacity to fly again. So she got the return
flight as he suggested. And despite the traumatic incident, went on to work as a flight
attendant with the airline for 15 more years. Talk about facing your fears. Up and up. If you're afraid of flying,
which you probably are by now, feel free to avert your eyes
because once you've seen this, you can never unsee it. In June, 2019, Mirjeta
Basha was on a flight with her husband on their way
from Kosovo to Switzerland, when 30 minutes into the two-hour flight, serious turbulence struck the aircraft. Having anticipated the turbulence, a flight attendant was collecting
all drinks from passengers when a sudden drop sent
her right to the ceiling. (people yelling) As food containers flew, people began screaming and crying, and Mirjeta's husband even suffered burns from scalding water stored in the flight attendant's trolley. Despite the chaos, flight
attendants assured the passengers that everything would be fine. And they were right. When the plane landed
in Basel, Switzerland, handling agents at the airport already had emergency
services waiting on the scene. Mirjeta's husband was one of 10 passengers who required minor medical assistance. But miraculously, the
flying flight attendant was reported to be absolutely fine. With the ability to soar
through the air like that, I'd say she deserves a promotion to pilot. Pilot hero. In October, 2008, just after lunch on board Qantas Flight 72
from Singapore to Perth, captain Kevin Sullivan
noticed the plane's autopilot had stopped working, But with the northwest coast
of Australia already in view, it didn't seem like much of a problem. That was until the plane's
controls also stopped working and the aircraft started
pitching down, violently down. All Captain Sullivan could
see through his windshield was the surface of the Indian Ocean. The plane was in a death
dive, and Captain Sullivan, an ex-fighter pilot, knew he'd have to fight
with everything he had to keep all 315 people onboard alive. To put into perspective
how extreme the dive was, a passenger, Caroline Southcott, was returning from the toilet
when the plane plummeted and she hit the cabin ceiling
with enough force to do this, losing consciousness in the process. Meanwhile, Captain Sullivan
was desperately trying to stabilize the plane. He tried letting go of the
controls to neutralize them, and thankfully it worked. The plane was no longer falling,
until two minutes later, the plane took another dive. Everyone on board,
including Captain Sullivan, thought they had met their grizzly end. Somehow though, Sullivan managed to restabilize the plane once more, and kept it airborne
just long enough to reach the Royal Australian
Airforce Base at Learmonth on Australia's northwest coast. Captain Sullivan landed the
plane entirely manually, all while knowing that at any moment, the controls may fight back again. Caroline, who had since woken up after her collision with the ceiling, was in a lot of pain, and proved to be one of more than 100
passengers reported injured. And that said, everyone survived. And some of the more
seriously injured fliers, including Caroline, received six-figure payouts from Qantas. And while Captain Sullivan himself didn't suffer any physical injuries, the event of that day haunted
him so much that in 2016, he decided to stop flying altogether. In a post-accident examination, the Australian Transport Safety
Bureau blamed incorrect data and software errors for the emergency. Similar to the types of
errors that later caused two Boeing 737 Max
crashes in 2018 and 2019. Only, unlike in those more recent cases, flight 72's gifted pilot Captain Sullivan, was able to land the plane
without any casualties. All I know is if
unpredictable, unavoidable, seemingly-random airplane
software glitches like these have been occurring since pre-2010 until as recently as 2019, I'll certainly be a little more nervous next time I board a plane. Have you ever had an
in-flight horror experience of your own? Let me know down in the comments below. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)
