Scary Airline Facts That Will Make You Nervous

Waiting in line for hours before flying through the sky in a tiny metal tube is kind of nerve-wracking. Still, flying is supposedly safer than driving, right? Fasten your seatbelts, because we’re about to explore some aspects of airplane design and air travel that the airlines don’t want you to know about.

How Dirty Are Airplanes?

Airlines like to say their planes are pristine, sleek, and hygienic vehicles. In reality, they’re about as clean as a movie theater floor. Every second an airplane isn’t in the air, it isn’t making money. As such, airlines really want to minimize their plane’s ground time and maximize their number of flights.

Ryanair can turn around short-haul flights in as little as 25 minutes, and Southwest in as little as 35, which is crazy fast! But it’s not much time to clean the plane, often leaving staff with just 15 minutes of cleaning time before passengers board.

According to flight attendant Sara Keagle, in economy class, freshly washed blankets are only provided on the first flight of the day. After that, they’re just folded and re-used; no matter how they’ve been used previously.

Even worse, those tray tables might only be wiped down once a day, usually when the plane remains grounded overnight. Think twice before pouring those pretzels straight onto the tray table, as passengers have been caught changing baby diapers on them.

One flight attendant told the Guardian she had to use passenger blankets to clean stains, as they weren’t given enough time or supplies to clean properly, and had even used them on human feces.

As recently as 2023 Air Canada came under fire for forcing passengers to sit on seats that were still covered in vomit from the previous flight. So, flight attendants placed coffee grounds in the seat pouch and sprayed it with perfume to disguise the smell!

If surfaces can’t be trusted, at least you can turn on the overhead fan and enjoy a nice, cool breeze. Well, I’d hold off unless you want gunk blown directly into your face. In 2015 flight data website Travel Math found that those vents had a greater concentration of bacteria than an airplane’s seatbelt buckles, airport bathroom locks, and even the airplane’s toilet flush button.

So if you want to cool off on an airplane, your best bet is to just stay hydrated, except even the water is dirty! Back in 2003, the EPA studied tap water from over 300 planes and found that 15% contained the harmful bacteria coliform, which is typically found in feces. That same water is often used to make the onboard tea and coffee, by the way.

While disgusting, it’s also hardly surprising, as the water tanks in planes are irregularly cleaned. So, if you want to stay clean on an airplane, you just need to remember; don’t drink the water, touch anything, or breathe. Simple!

What's The Safest Seat On An Airplane?

A middle seat, at the back of a busy plane, that’s hell. But if you ever find yourself stuck with this seat, don’t switch! In 2007, Popular Mechanics conducted an analysis on the National Transportation Safety Board’s data on airline crashes that resulted in at least a single fatality and survivor. While your odds of ever being in a plane crash are low, about one in 1.2 million, your odds of perishing in a plane crash are even lower at one in 11 million.

Popular Mechanics looked at every deadly air crash in the United States between 1971 and 2007, and what they found was shocking. It seems that when it comes to survival, all seats aren’t created equal. They found that those towards the front of the plane had only a 49% chance of survival, those in the middle had a 56% chance of survival, and those towards the back had a much higher 69% chance of survival.

And the safest seats of all? Well, those were the middle seats towards the back of the plane, with a 72% survival rate. Therefore, the seats we think are the worst are actually the safest.

Do Not Pair System For Pilots

It’s easy to see people who work in certain professions as unshakeable super-humans: doctors, firefighters. Another is the noble pilot. They fly multi-million dollar equipment and are responsible for the safety of hundreds of people. Surely only the most calm, mature, capable people become pilots? Nope!

Like in all professions, sometimes pilots and co-pilots don’t get along. This is why airlines have a secret system they try not to let passengers know about; the no-pair system. Every Captain, First and Second Officer have a list of names that connect to their carrier’s scheduling system. They can then add the names of anyone they don’t get along with to their personal list, lowering the odds they’ll fly together, which makes sense.

However, the Do Not Pair list isn’t perfect. In 2022, on an Air France flight heading from Geneva to Paris, two pilots had a serious disagreement shortly after take-off. While the two men were supposed to be flying the plane, they were instead grabbing each other’s collars, with one of them reportedly clocking the other.

The commotion caught the attention of a member of the cabin crew who spent the rest of the flight in the cockpit having to monitor them! If only passengers had do not pair lists they could put their pilots on.

Baggage Problems

We all hope that baggage handlers the world over take their jobs seriously, and handle baggage with the utmost care. But the violent approach to baggage handling in the video below isn’t unique; the Internet is full of clips like this. More than just being the norm, though, tossing bags around like this might be the only way these guys can do their job.

Baggage handlers filmed throwing Qantas luggage at airport stood down | ABC News by ABC News (Australia)

The common Boeing 747-400 can seat 416 passengers in a three-class configuration. Let’s assume that only half those passengers check any baggage, and that they only check one bag apiece. That’s 208 bags that need to be loaded.

Let’s say these baggage handlers can receive a bag, gently move it, and neatly stack it in just twenty seconds. That would mean it would take two baggage handlers 34 minutes to load or unload a plane. Remember that some airlines claim to have turnaround times of 30 minutes, and you can see why careful baggage handling just isn’t practical.

If you can’t protect your bag’s outsides, surely you can protect their insides, right? Using a nice big lock on your zips usually does the trick. Nothing can get by this right? Nothing except a ballpoint pen, that is. Getting through most zippers is as simple as jabbing them with a pen and running it along the seam. Once a bag has been pilfered, the zips can simply be dragged around to reseal the bag.

How to open luggage with a ballpoint pen by SafeSuitcases.com

According to the LA Times, fewer than 500 of the TSA’s 150,000 employees were arrested for theft between 2001 and 2011, or just 0.3%. However, those were just the employees who got caught.

Even going by those odds, though, you’re way more likely to have your bags handled by a TSA thief than getting into a plane accident! One convicted TSA worker claimed there was a culture of indifference at their airport, and claim to have pilfered over $800,000 worth of passenger goods over a four year period.

Flights of Frenzy

While you might think the pilots are the most essential people on the plane, flight attendants also deserve more praise. They bring us our food, show us to our seats, are in charge of our safety, and ask the guy sitting in front of us to raise his seat back up when we can’t summon the courage to.

Considering they have such important roles, airlines must take good care of them, right? Wrong! Shockingly, for all the time they spend getting the plane ready and helping everyone on board, flight attendants are only actually paid once the plane door shuts, marking the beginning of their official shift.

Despite this, flight attendants are still expected to arrive early, greet passengers, check documents, store bags, explain emergency landing procedure, ensure the plane is stocked with food and drink, bid farewell to passengers, and numerous other responsibilities, all of which is unpaid labor.

It’s not uncommon for flight attendants to end up working 4 to 6 uncompensated hours every day. Still, flight attendants do get their own secret beds and rest area on long-haul flights. But where? Airplanes are cramped enough as it is, where could they be hiding a whole bedroom? Well, they’re usually above overhead baggage storage!

So, while you’re napping in your seat, they’re napping in the hollows above you, which feels incredibly unnerving! They need these naps, too, as some flight attendants claim they’re heavily discouraged from slouching while in uniform. Imagine working a 10 hour flight, sleeping on a flatpack bed, and not even being allowed to rest your shoulders.

Well, they may not be comfortable, but they’re at least stylish, right? While they wear snappy uniforms, looking good comes with a heavy price. In 2020, over 500 Delta flight attendants filed a lawsuit against clothing manufacturer Land’s End, who supplied their new passport plum uniforms.

The lawsuit claimed the uniforms were made from cheap materials that caused breathing issues, hives, and hair loss. Oh, and they also dyed the flight attendants’ sheets purple, so clearly only the finest materials were used.

As of the time of writing that case is still pending, however in November of 2023 a jury ruled in favor of a different group of flight attendants from American Airlines claiming their uniforms were causing rashes, headaches, and breathing problems. Who would have guessed the most dangerous part of flying could be getting dressed in the morning?

Bird Strikes

It’s no secret that, despite how nervous we may get, air travel is one of the safest forms of transportation known to man, but not to birds. The official term airlines use when a bird hits a plane is bird strike, presumably because it sounds better than bird evisceration.

Bird strikes occur far more often than airlines would like us to believe, and you may have even been on a plane when it mulched one. According to the FAA’s wildlife strike database, there were 493 reported bird destructions in New York Airports alone between 2021 and 2022, and even those are just incidents reported.

As terrible as that is for birds, it isn’t always easy on planes, either. Take a look at the nose of this Turkish Airlines plane. The thing looks like it was struck by a meteorite. In reality, the plane was struck by a low-flying bird. While it landed safely, the plane, not the bird, it’s in need of a serious nose job.

In 2023 an American Airlines flight suffered a nasty bird strike, causing an engine fire and forcing the plane to land prematurely. While no one was harmed, the fire department were called and had to deal with a very sticky situation.

VIDEO | American Airlines plane engine catches fire after possible bird strike by WKYC Channel 3

Still it could have been much worse. In 1960, a flock of starlings brought down a plane that had been airborne less than a minute. Tragically, the plane careened into the Boston Harbor and claimed the lives of 62 people.

The scariest part of all this? There’s very little airlines can actually do about it, and bird strikes cost them around $1.3 billion a year. But one recent solution that’s showing promise is googly eyes. French researchers have found that what they call looming eyes near runways can be effective at scaring away certain birds, kind of like a cartoon scarecrow.

Flying Organs

Have you ever picked up the wrong suitcase at baggage claim? Embarrassing, right? Well, be thankful you didn’t accidentally walk off with someone’s pancreas. It’s more likely than you think, as human organs are often transported on commercial flights.

That’s right, your underwear and socks might be a few inches of material away from a human kidney. It doesn’t stop there, either. Human remains are often transported onboard commercial flights, as well as fresh organs.

While this is crazy to realize, it’s actually essential. When someone on the other side of the country needs a new heart fast, what do you think they’re going to do? Call a private jet? A single flight on those can cost thousands of dollars. A commercial plane isn’t just the fastest and most cost effective way to deliver body parts, but the safest.

Remember how much more likely you are to get into a traffic accident than an air accident? Human organs are valuable; a heart right now is worth just under a million dollars, while a liver is worth over $520,000, with the kidney and pancreas going for $260,000 and $275,000 respectively.

That precious, squishy cargo is way safer in the air than on a road. Well, kind of because airlines don’t want to give away tickets to trained medical staff to handle the organs. This means it’s usually up to regular baggage handlers to handle those organ luggage.

If you’ve ever lost your baggage or ended up with the wrong suitcase, well, I hate to tell you, but it happens with organs, too. In 2018 a human heart was accidentally left aboard a Southwest Airlines flight! And a study found that between 2014 and 2019, 170 organs were rendered unusable due to transportation issues, with another 370 near misses.

Organs used to be stored in the cockpit, but since the events of 9/11, now they’re in the cargo hold, along with all the other luggage. Imagine how awful that baggage mix-up would be!

The Secret Lock

Airplane bathrooms aren’t actually safe at all. For starters, did you know the lock on an airplane bathroom does nothing? It locks the door, but it doesn’t stop outsiders from getting in. Take a look:

How to open an airplane's inside locked lavatory door from outside? by Sándor Tarnóczi

A secret anti-lock! What’s the deal? When you think about it though, an airplane door that can’t be opened is pretty dangerous. Someone could pass out in there and need medical attention, or a child could accidentally lock themselves in! Please use this information responsibly though, don’t use it to play toilet peekaboo.

So, airplane bathrooms may not be super secure, but at least there are always enough of them, right? Well, no. The Boeing 737-800 is the most common commercial airplane in the world. It has 138 seats and 3 toilets.

That just doesn’t feel like enough. Surely, there have to be guidelines regulating this sort of thing? Well, no. According to a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration, there are actually no minimum bathroom requirements for commercial airliners. Better hope airlines don’t go too crazy with cutting costs.

Oxygen Masks

When you’re worried about your luggage, elbow room, and whether you might drop 50,000 feet out the sky, it can be easy to forget some of the other dangers of flying. Take air pressure, for example.

As you fly higher and higher, the air pressure gets lower and lower. This is because air pressure is a measure of the weight of the air is above you, the higher you go, the less air, and pressure, there is, making it colder and harder to breathe.

Airplanes are designed to counteract this by keeping the cabin pressure at around 11 or 12 PSI, which is lower than the approximate 14.7 we’re used to, but still totally fine. If anything does go wrong, however, we have these, oxygen masks!

These drop down whenever the plane experiences a sudden drop in cabin pressure so passengers can enjoy safe, breathable air. Without them, drops in cabin pressure can result in a loss of consciousness, nasty headaches, and various other health issues, so they’re crucial.

With that in mind, can you guess how much breathable air they provide passengers? A couple hours, maybe one? Nope! Try about 15 minutes. Now, that’s the average, but the FAA only requires that they provide 10 minutes! Still, 10 minutes should be enough, as in most cases that’s enough time for a pilot to notice the drop in air pressure and descend the plane to 10,000 feet, which has a safe PSI of 10.2.

Still, as you should know by now, if a company can cut corners and cheap out on safety, they often will. John Barnett, a former Boeing quality control engineer told the BBC that a quarter of the oxygen masks on Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner simply didn’t work correctly, but Boeing went ahead and installed them anyway.

Wouldn’t you know it, in 2024, an Alaskan Airlines Flight aboard a Boeing lost a door whilst airborne, and several of the passenger’s claimed their oxygen masks just didn’t work.

Alaska Airlines flight makes emergency landing after suffering mid-air window blowout by Sky News

They allege they had to scramble around the cabin searching for functional ones. In the footage above, they showed amazing composure on their parts. If my plane’s door flew off, I’d probably have a heart attack before the mask even deployed. Or didn’t deploy, if I was on a Boeing.

Flight Panes

Holes aren’t something I’d say belong in a plane’s fuselage, and yet, there are holes all over the aircraft we travel on that we’re not aware of, like this one in the image below!

Apparently, these hatches were built into older models of aircraft, like this SAAB 340, so ground crew could pass important papers to pilots without boarding the plane. Especially useful as airliners aren’t supposed to reopen doors once they’re shut, as it could alter the plane’s weight estimation. So, don’t worry about little cockpit holes.

But what about the airplane windows? They’re pretty safe, too, rather than glass, they’re comprised of three planes of stretched, clear acrylic. Each layer acts as a safeguard on the slim chance the preceding layer cracks, and that little hole in the middle pane prevents condensation.

While regular use isn’t likely to break a plane window, they aren’t designed to withstand direct damage. On April 17th, a Southwestern Airlines flight experienced an engine failure, and a small fragment of the engine hit a window, causing a break. The passenger next to that window was partially sucked out, and sadly didn’t survive.

Another terrifying incident involved a British Airways Captain being partially sucked out when poorly installed cockpit window blew out. Luckily, he got tangled up in the control panel, saving his life. He was sticking out the front of the plane for 20 minutes before the co-pilot could land. While the Captain survived, he was badly injured, suffering from frostbite caused by the high-altitude winds.

As horrifying as those stories are, plane manufacturers must be improving their safety all the time, right? Well, no. In fact, in 2022, Boeing threatened to just stop making their 737 line of planes unless they were given exemption from certain safety requirements.

Remember John Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower? According to him, oxygen masks are the tip of the iceberg, and in some cases Boeing used substandard parts salvaged from scrap bins in their planes!

The Truth About Turbulence

Turbulence. Everyone hates it. Every bump, no matter how small, hits your brain’s ‘you’re about to die’ alarm. And here's the bad news: turbulence is getting worse, and there’s nothing airlines can do about it.

There are a few different types of turbulence: wake turbulence is caused when one plane follows a little too closely behind another. Thermal turbulence is caused by rising warm air and towering clouds.

The kind we’re interested in is clear-air turbulence. This is the bumpy turbulence that occurs when there isn’t a cloud in the sky. It’s caused by sudden changes in wind speed and direction, known as wind shear, typically at heights greater than 35,000 feet. This type of turbulence can be dangerous, as unlike other kinds, it doesn’t show up on onboard equipment, and it’s getting worse.

As global temperatures begin to rise due to climate change, the warmer air caused by CO2 emissions is increasing the frequency of wind shear. One study found that wind shear had increased by 15% between 1979 and 2019, and could potentially triple within the next few decades.

While turbulence still isn’t likely to cause a crash, it is a major cause of airline injuries as people are tossed about the cabin or hit by falling luggage. Turbulence-related injuries and structural plane damage cost airlines somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion per year.

Good news, though! This is all only a problem if your plane takes off in the first place. You see, planes have a more difficult time taking off in warmer climates. This is because warm air is less dense, and thus, generates less lift. As global temperatures rise, we can also expect more delays. Well, you can be sitting around on the ground, or bumped around in the air. Your choice.

The Deal With Airline Food

Time to answer that age old question; what’s the deal with airline food? Well, buckle up, because answering that question will also answer why air travel is generally bad. Yes, seriously, it all ties back to the food. Check out the commercial below for Boeing’s 747-100, rolled out in 1969.

"BOEING 747-100 FIRST CLASS LOUNGE...! by AlexAlberto

Yes, this really is a plane. It’s almost unrecognizable compared to modern airliners; it’s roomy, decorative, and look at that food! Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon for planes to feature luxury meals and even piano bars! So, how did it go downgraded?

Back in 1938 when air travel was first becoming a major American industry, the US formed the Civil Aeronautics Board. This board was in charge of regulating the new industry, and one of its many responsibilities was setting ticket prices.

That’s right, airlines couldn’t charge whatever they wanted. Instead, tickets were priced according to the number of miles travelled along a route. So, a ticket from New York to LA would always cost the same amount, no matter the airline.

As airlines couldn’t compete based on price, they instead had to compete with customer satisfaction. Thus, every airline tried to offer the nicest food, the roomiest seats, the hottest crew; it’s the reason your grandpa calls this era the Golden Age of Air Travel.

However, This came to an end in 1978 with the Airline Deregulation Act, which heavily deregulated the industry. Suddenly, airlines could now charge whatever they wanted, and began competing for who could offer the lowest prices.

1984 People Express Airlines Commercial by Cubz72

This inevitably started a race to the bottom. With lower ticket prices, airlines cut costs wherever else they could, and food quality was of the first victims. Airlines no longer had the desire or money to provide luxury meals or piano bars. Some issues we’ve already discussed arose after the deregulation act. Now to be fair, the deregulation act is responsible for air travel in the United States getting cheaper. However, since then many airlines merged, and raised prices back up anyway.

If you were amazed at these scary airline facts, you might want to read about more airplane facts. Thanks for reading.