Some more ‘Most Bizarre Aviation Stories’ from 2018

Last time we presented our readers with some bizarre aviation stores of 2018 and now we have some more of them. As we said last time, the year 2018 was unexpected for the aviation industry, this is why there are so many bizarre aviation stories.

Few of them are downright funny while one or two of them are indeed tragic incidents of the aviation industry. Still, we present some more bizarre aviation stories from 2018.

Passengers of a certain United Airlines flight were compensated by the airlines following the erratic boarding announcements made by a flight attendant who was drunk and disorderly

A regional carrier flight of the United Airlines being flown on the Trans Satellite Airlines was headed from Chicago to its destination. But the unusual thing about that flight was that the passengers were fully compensated for their expenses. The reason for that was, as per the passengers on board, the flight attendants were either drunk out of her mind or stoned out of her senses when she made announcements in an erratic manner. The same flight attendants also acted in a belligerent manner towards the passengers.

The airlines apologized to its customers in the form of compensating them fully for their employee’s rude behavior and as a gesture of goodwill.

A man was arrested from LAX after he jumped the fence and started performing pushups

You heard about a man walking on the airport’s tarmac in his underwear but this man did no such thing. The man only jumped over the fence of the Los Angeles International Airport and started doing push-ups. There is nothing wrong with having healthy activity. Well, the airport authorities did not take too kindly of this as this happens to be a major security hazard.

Well, the investigation led to the report that the man was suffering from mental illness and was possibly high on strong narcotics.

An Airbus A380 of the Emirates Airlines was held under quarantine at the JFK airport after 100 passengers got seriously ill

Flight no. EK203 of the Emirates was held in quarantine as soon as it landed on the JFK International Airport back on 5^th September. As per the news from the Center for Disease Control, almost 100 passengers along with several of the flight crew members started complaining about illness on board. As for Emirates, they revised this number that 19 passengers were sick and 11 of them were taken straight to the hospital after landing.

The symptoms experienced by passengers on board were cough, gastrointestinal problems, and high fever.

A woman flying on a flight of Frontier airlines was kicked off the flight after bringing her emotional-support squirrel on the flight

A woman on board a flight of the Frontier Airlines had to be kicked off the flight after she refused to not let go of the squirrel which brought onboard as her emotional support animal.

The airline said in a statement to media, “The passenger noted in their reservation that they were indeed bringing an emotional support animal. Still, the passenger failed to report that this animal was actually a squirrel.”

The crew explained to this female passenger that this animal was not permitted onboard under the airlines’ policy and thus asked her to leave it behind. The woman downright refused and thus the Orlando Police had to be called on the scene. This led to the entire plane to be deplaned for the sake of escorting this one very non-compliant passenger.

A plane of the Lion Air crashed a short while after taking off

Perhaps the worst air crash of 2018 for airlines occurred on 29^th October. The aircraft crashed was for Lion Air’s flight no. 610 that crashed off near the coast of Jakarta, Indonesia. The resulting crash did not leave any survivor causing death of 181 passengers along with 8 crew members.

Later the data obtained from the aircraft’s black box revealed that the pilots tried their best to regain control of the aircraft which suffered from a faulty sensor. The faulty sensor caused the problem in the aircraft’s automatic systems which caused the aircraft to nose dive.

A passenger of a Delta Air Lines flight had faeces on his plane seat and also accidentally stepped on the faeces. The flight crew refused to help the said passenger.

One passenger flying on a flight of Delta Airlines complained that he had stepped on dog faeces aboard the aircraft during the boarding process. He also complained that when he asked the aircrew for assistance, they refused to help him.

The passenger’s name was Matthew Meehan who had stepped in the faeces of the dog and the other passengers on board refused to sit unless the mess was cleaned up.

Meehan said, “Those were faeces and they were scattered everywhere. They were on my seat and on the floor too. My feet were smeared in them”

Meehan said that when he for help from flight attendants they only gave him one little water bottle and 2 paper towels.

A pilot of Air India was fired after failing the breathalyzer test two times just 2 hours before he was to fly a plane

A pilot of the Air India was fired by its employer after he failed to pass the breathalyzer test twice only 2 hours before he was scheduled to fly an aircraft.

The name of the said pilot was Captain Arvind Kathpalia who was scheduled to fly the Air India’s Flight No. 111 headed to London from Delhi. He failed to pass the pre-flight breathalyzer test and was deemed not fit for flying the aircraft.

After this first test, Kathpalia underwent another test but again he failed it and was thus fired.

He was not only the pilot of the airline but also the Directors of Operations. His job demanded him to be in charge of ensuring the safety as well as the efficiency of all the flight operations.

London Gatwick Airport was closed down following drones flying over the runways

The second busiest and major airport in the UK is the London Gatwick Airport but it had to be closed down for over 24 hours back in December of 2018. The reason was that a large number of drones started flying all over the runway and this led to nearly 65000 people getting affected due to flights being cancelled.

The operator of these drones was never found but this was indeed one of the bad cases of airport holdup in 2018 especially for an airport like London Gatwick Airport which handles over 45 million passengers yearly.