News & Views

Yikes! Remember when flying the friendly skies was, well, friendly? Or at least not outwardly hostile? You never know what you're in for when you board a plane these days: Perhaps you'll be forced to sit next to a dead man for 10 hours. Perhaps two F-15 fighters will need to escort your plane because of "mentally unstable" passenger claiming to have some sort of dangerous "surgically implanted device." If all you end up having to deal with is a little turbulence or some kid kicking the back of your seat, consider yourself lucky!

In fact, the next time you're delayed in a runway traffic jam or your baggage gets sent to Timbuktu, remember -- things could always be worse. You could've been stuck on one of these flights:

5 Worst In-Flight Fiascos

1. Flight Attendant Hissy Fit Hey, nobody likes waiting for hours to board a plane when bad weather hits, but aren't flight attendants supposed to be used to that kind of thing? Maybe American Eagle flight attendant Jose Serrano was having a particularly bad day when he was caught on video freaking out in response to passengers' complaints: "I don't want to hear anything. We will not hear anything once we close the door. So if you have balls, this is your time. Otherwise you're going to have to fly with Jose."

2. Wacky Pilot Meltdown I'm going to go ahead and say that yelling stuff like "we're going down!" is almost never a funny prank to play when you're actually on an airplane, especially -- ESPECIALLY -- if you're the pilot. That's just not a good joke, JetBlue pilot Clayton F. Osbon. (And the cracks about terrorists really didn't help.)

3. Passenger Goes Bust You probably think you know all about what you can and can't board a plane with, right? Like, don't bring any knives or guns or bombs or more than 3 ounces of liquid ... or boobs. Yup, that's right: Show too much cleavage and you might not be boarding that plane at all -- at least that's what almost happened to one busty flier. Southwest Airlines has since apologized.

4. Toddler Terror Grounds Plane Remember when you were a kid on a family road trip and you and your siblings would misbehave in the backseat and your dad would be all, Don't make me turn this car around! Well, imagine that happened on a plane instead of in a car, and it was just one 3-year-old having a tantrum, and the PILOT REALLY DID TURN THE PLANE AROUND. Yep.

5. Maggot-Infested Meal of Horror Nobody expects airline food to be good. Nobody even expects airline food to be mediocre. But maggot-infested? That's a bit much. And the slimy suckers weren't even in one of those microwaved trays of doom, they were in a bag of complementary trail mix. BLECH!!!

What's the worst in-flight experience you've ever had?

Image via Kuster & Wildhaber Photographry/Flickr