When you actually break down the numbers, flying is the safest form of transportation out there. The emergency training that pilots and flight attendants go through is extensive, to say the least, and each plane is fully stocked with equipment to protect passengers during any number of terrifying scenarios. Plus, you don't have to worry about traffic jams in the sky, drunk 16-year-old drivers swerving around, or deers jumping in front of the plane in the dead of night.

However, despite the fact that planes are far safer than any car ride, it feels far more terrifying when a flight goes south (literally). In most cases, flight attendants and crew are instructed to go through with safety precautions before alerting passengers, in hopes the plane will stabilize before widespread mayhem.

In a recent Reddit thread, flight attendant and passengers shared the scariest flights they've survived, and their steel nerves are admirable.

1. neenamonners's mom survived a close call.

My mom was a flight attendant for U.S.Air before I was born, and I know her scary story.

She was exhausted at the tail end of a shift that had run longer than it should have because they got paused in Philly for nasty winter weather conditions. They were finally finished getting de-iced and about to start taxiing when one of the passengers called her over and told her that he'd been watching carefully and he didn't think they'd de-iced both wings of the plane, just one side. She sort of reassured him that she would go check but he was probably mistaken, and then even though she was really tempted to wave it off as just a jumpy passenger, she went to the pilot just to check.

Welp! Passenger was correct and the plane was only half de-iced when they were getting ready to leave. If they'd taken off like that, it probably would have been disastrous. Mom told me that even though it didn't happen in mid-air, it was her all-time scariest moment during her tenure as a flight attendant because she knows how close they came to a very dangerous situation and she knows that she almost didn't stop it from happening even when warned.

2. arthur2-shedsjackson has had a few close calls.

I was a navigator in the air Force does that count? One time we were stuck between a thunderstorm and the Iranian border ended up having to fly through the thunderstorm.

Another time we had a fire on board and a lot of the crew left their oxygen regulators on full blast while we were dealing with it. After about 45 minutes I realized we are almost completely out of liquid oxygen and had another 2 hours left to get home.

3. lornstar7 was given an ominous warning.

Not crew, but I was on a plane one time and some lake effect snow popped up out of nowhere apparently and our approach was pretty bad, and this old guy next to me turns to me and says Normandy was less bumpy than this shit.

4. organicfreerangetim's colleague faced death with style.

Not me - but I was on a flight at the same time. My colleagues landed and said that mid flight a lightning bolt hit their plane making a massive noise and killing the power for a few moments. Everyone was screaming and crying in a total panic. Apparently it was THAT bad.

My colleague looks to the other and says "Well, we're both sales guys so I guess I'll see you in hell"

5. Sky_hostess lived through a terrifying few hours.

I posted this in another thread a few years ago:

We were flying DFW-HNL (Dallas - Honolulu) we were about 30 minutes past the point of no return and the captain informs us (flight attendants) that he had to shut one engine down because it was over heating. We had about 2 and a half hours until we could reach any kind of land. We had a new hire (2 months?) working the flight that got very emotional and started saying things like "I don't want to die" in a panicked voice. We had to shush her so passengers wouldn't start freaking out. As time progressed I tried to ignore the fact that the other engine could crap out or we could have a bird strike or any number of things could go wrong. I started casually going through the cabin and rechecking all of the emergency equipment on board.

To calm the new hire down I took her through with me to try and remind her of her training. Just as she started calming down I notice a strange noise coming from the functioning engine. It was the sound it makes when we are changing speeds around the time we are about to land. We were still 1 hour 40 minutes out.

The captain gives us another call and my heart sank. Just as he called a passenger gets up out of his seat and collapses right in the aisle. His shirt caught on the arm rest and ripped his shirt wide open. His wife screams. There are 4 flight attendants on this flight so someone else answered the call from the captain and I had to deal with this. In my mind I am thinking "how am I going to secure this guy if we are going down? Should I just leave him there and answer the phone? I need to know what the captain is saying.." meanwhile the wife is trying to wake him up and I'm asking my coworker to get medical equipment.

I immediately switch to first responder mode once I see him turn pasty white. None of these passengers know about our engine problem and only a few notice this guy passed out in the aisle. I saw him fall so I was the "caretaker". The "runner" calls for any Medical personelle onboard and tells me that she can't call the captain because he's still talking to the "lead" (oh right we have that going on too). By the time a paramedic comes the guy is waking up but says his chest is really tight.

He coughing and looks almost gray. We hook him up to oxygen and get him back to his seat. The Paramedic says we need to land soon (haha) and get him to a hospital. As we get him back to his seat I notice the lead flight attendant has a yellow life vest on and is coming towards me. Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. She tells me that the captain was able to turn the engine back on and that we should be landing in about an hour. We send up the message about the sick passenger.

I know most passengers had no idea about any of this. I was standing there in the back galley, sweating from helping this guy back to his seat, stressing about the poor new hire who we locked in the bathroom and just trying to gather myself. A passenger slowly walks up to me, stretching, yawning, pulls his ear buds out and asks, how much longer? Are you guys going to come out soon with the drink cart, can I have a sprite? All I could do was laugh at myself for getting so worked up. We landed with no incident.

Edit: She was wearing the life vest because she was checking the demo bags and these kids saw her and were curious how the vest worked.

6. N47nz contemplated their entire life.

Hit crazy turbulence in a prop plane flying into Saginaw from Detroit. Plane was all over the air like a roller-coaster.. Up down, side to side, I swear I thought it was gonna barrel roll at one point. Seemed to never end, but was probably only really a few minutes. Time kinda slowed down. My girlfriend and I were the only two people on the plane who weren't Marines going to some Marine thing. Those guys were cracking some pretty dark jokes while I contemplated my time on earth.

Edit : not crew hope no one minds.

Wow over 100 up votes! Lots of Marines reading this?

7. Cluelessinfl is just happy to be here.

Flying home from FL to NY. Scheduled to land at LaGuardia. Right after takeoff we could all hear the motor that retracts the landing gear straining. And the landing gear would not retract. When it finally did, everyone seemed relieved but I was thinking 'sh*t, I hope it comes back down when it's time to land.' Lo and behold, about 1/2 hr before landing, the pilot announces that we were being diverted to JFK because of landing gear trouble. We needed a longer runway to stop the plane.

So now people are praying and biting their nails. We could hear the motor trying to bring the landing gear down for several minutes before it finally came down at almost the last minute. We land and the plane isn't slowing down. We hear all kinds of horrible sounds, smell smoke...people are now really freaking out. Plane stops after using up almost the whole runway. There were emergency trucks all over the sides of the runway, foamers..etc. Was never so happy to get off a plane!!

Edit: I was a passenger, not crew. I realized my error after posting.

8. ayeuplass has an amazing husband.

Not FA but I was on a flight where the crew were definitely... concerned.

I was on a 4 hour flight from Greece to the UK. I was 7 months pregnant at the time. About 2 hours into the flight we hit turbulence. I’ve never been a nervous flier, have gone on many long haul flights, and have never been one to be concerned by turbulence before. When this turbulence started I thought “this is rough”, but wasn’t too concerned. The fasten seatbelt lights came on, but the crew were midway down the aisle with the cart. They didn’t seem too concerned to start with and were handling the turbulence with ease, when suddenly it felt like the plane got hit it jolted so hard.

The FAs in the aisle fell onto the passengers next to them and my head bounced off the wall next to me. As the turbulence ramped up a notch an announcement came over instructing the crew to secure themselves immediately. The FAs immediately abandoned what they were doing and went and secured the cart and all the crew were quickly strapped into their seats. The turbulence was still going quite violently and I was having to brace my arms to stay steady. At this point I was already thinking this was the worst turbulence I’d ever experienced, but I was expecting it to end soon like it normally does. I was very wrong...

After what was probably a minute or two of this quite shocking turbulence I was thinking “it won’t be long before people start puking” and I was right. Sick bags were rustling all over, sounds of vomiting filled the air, and calls lights started pinging rapidly. Obviously the crew didn’t attend any. Of the two FAs I could see one had her head tipped back and eyes closed while gripping onto her seatbelt, the other was looking grimly out at the scenes unfolding before her. I was just starting to get queasy and thinking this was a total nightmare when suddenly the turbulence hit a level I didn’t know even existed. It felt like we were in a washing machine. I had my seatbelt on, secured below my bump, and yet I was being thrown around like a rag doll.

I have a condition where my joints dislocate very easily and I felt my wrists, elbows, and shoulders subluxing as I desperately tried to cling onto the arm rests to prevent my whole upper half being flung around. My legs kept smacking against the seat in front with each up and down motion and my head kept slamming against the wall with the side to side. My neck felt like it was going to snap. It was so violent I couldn’t actually see what was going on around me, it was just a blur - it felt like being on a rollercoaster. It was just a total lack of control, wanting it desperately to stop but being at the total mercy of the elements. You could hear people gasping and maybe sobbing and lots of banging and rattling.

Just as I was wondering if it was ever going to stop I suddenly shot upwards. We were plunging. The lights all went out and everyone screamed. It was ear splitting and haunting. I legitimately thought it was the end. My butt was off my seat, I was held down only by the belt across the top of my thighs. It was the weirdest feeling, like being sucked upwards.

As quick as it happened, it stopped. The lights flickered back on, and we were back to turbulence. It wasn’t as bad as it had been at it’s worst, more just moderate turbulence now. I turned and looked at my husband who was just white. I looked down to see his arm across my front, he’d flung it across me and grabbed the other side arm rest to pin me in when we’d dropped. He just whispered “you nearly went” and all I could do was nod before blacking out (I have dodgy blood pressure issues to start with).

I woke up to my husband supporting my head and the stranger next to him asking if I was ok or if I wanted one of her daughter’s sick bags. The turbulence was almost completely gone, just the odd mild rumble that most people would consider normal. I looked around to see a few people all gathered and peering at someone up ahead of me, a woman who was still screaming at full volume. I think she was having some kind of anxiety attack. The FAs were now going up and down the aisle checking people.

One stopped and asked if I was ok and I just said yes. I was really sore, everywhere hurt (I later found significant bruises all over my body), but I imagine that was the case for most people. I felt faint and queasy but otherwise fine. The rest of the flight went relatively smoothly, but everyone braced and went silent at the slightest grumble of turbulence. The seatbelt lights stayed on the whole flight and we were told only to get up if it was absolutely necessary.

I had some contractions towards the end of the flight but they stopped once I got off the plane and walked so I think they came more from being sat in an uncomfortable position for 4 hours. After everyone had calmed down the captain did an announcement apologising for what happened. He did explain why it had occurred and it was something to do with a thunder storm but I didn’t really absorb the details because my mind was reeling. He said the big drop was us actually plummeting over 100 feet in a single instance, but that it hadn’t been a fault, it was actually a decision he’d made to avoid something that would have been dangerous to fly through. I’m just happy he managed to handle it and get us all back on the ground safely. There was the biggest round of applause when we landed, and it was a well deserved one.

9. CarlPeligro had a hell of a series of events.

I was flying home from Georgia: The Country after volunteering there for a year. The last month of my service was a total cluster. During that time I:

- Fell up some asphalt stairs and knocked out one of my front teeth

- Survived a taxi cab wreck in which the (presumably drunk) driver decided to drive us off a cliff

- Went hitchhiking to the nearest city (the preferred mode of transportation in the villages), got thrown out of the (slowly) moving vehicle in a dark alleyway and got roughed up by four Georgian dudes until a concerned citizen stepped out into the street and probably saved my life

So I was all nerves on the Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to Chicago O'Hare.

This was December 22nd, 2013, if I recall correctly. Chicago was in the midst of an especially nasty blizzard, and as we came in for a landing, the plane began quaking and quivering, with the occasional heart-stopping jolt of turbulence. People were screaming and crying. I was perhaps even more terrified than anyone else, but I sat there grinning like an idiot, gripping the armrests so tightly that my knuckles went white.

The Turkish girl next to me began experiencing a full-on panic attack. She unbuckled her seatbelt and started pacing up and down the aisles, as though she were looking for a way off the plane. One of the (English speaking) flight attendants told her to sit down. She stared at him, a total blank. Then he raised his voice and shouted, "Sit the fuck down!" The girl was dumbstruck. She sat back down and buckled her seatbelt, totally catatonic, gazing into the fabric of the seatback in front of her.

We landed safely. I nearly cried with fucking relief. I hadn't slept in 36 hours or so. All connecting flights had been cancelled and everyone was bitching at the airline representative about how much they needed to get home to their families.

"No. You don't understand. I need to get home in time for Christmas!"

Well, no shit.

I waited at the back of the line and, when I was told that my flight had been canceled, I said that I didn't care. I'd just catch a bus the next morning or something. No worries. The dude was so relieved by my passivity that he set me up in a super posh hotel for the night, where I used a functional Western toilet for the first time in almost a year.

Midway through the night, the fire alarm went off and we were all evacuated from the hotel. Given the luck I'd been having, I was shocked that the place didn't burn to the ground with me in it.

The following morning, I caught a cab to the bus station. My cabby had an accent that I thought I recognized. I asked him where he was from. He was Georgian. Fortunately, there were no cliffs for him to launch us off of. Then I took an eight-hour Greyhound bus back home, which was another type of terror altogether.

10. sight_ful got hit by lightning multiple times.

Another flight attendant here. My scariest moment was after we got within 700 ft of landing. The pilots whipped the plane back up because of heavy winds and announced that we were diverting to a nearby city in another country.

It was a short flight to the other city, and it was bumpy so I was strapped in. A couple of other flight attendants were standing up shooting the shit though. All the sudden the entire cabin went bright white. Specifically I could tell that the light was entering the plane from the other side around the corner I couldn’t really see behind. The flight attendants nearly jumped all the way to their seats and strapped in. There was one passenger that I locked eyes with at one point. Her and I both both made this nervous smile at each other like, “Lets not die here!”

We did end up landing alright. It took 4 hours for us to get off the plane because of all the other planes that diverted there. They also told us the next day that we got hit by lightening at least 3 times. They could tell because of little pin pricks that the lightening makes when it hits the plane.

By the way, I still feel so much safer in a plane than almost any other mode of transportation. The statistics don’t lie. The regulations and redundancy on safety measures is unparalleled.

11. MTB0315 crashed into the clouds.

FA here, we hit some seriously bad (and I mean plane-breaking bad) turbulence mid-service (we were out in the aisle with the cart (for reference those way close to 200lbs fully loaded)) and out of nowhere, we were floating with this cart smashing a hole in the ceiling panel above us, and then we were both thrown down against people, seats, and armrests, I landed on the floor and the cart came down only inches from my skull, and dented the floor. Wine bottles, full cans of soda, and lots of hot trays went everywhere.

We were diving really quickly and steeply, people were screaming, and I couldn't find my other FA. The engines were running higher and louder than I'd ever heard and I screamed at the person closest to me to hold the cart down no matter what, and tried to make my way to the back galley, climbing uphill over bags from the overheads. I got to the galley and tried to get a hold of the flight deck, no answer. I call again and the line connects to alarms and buzzers

"Secure the cabin and sit the fuck down, fast." This is all I hear from the captain before he cuts the line.

I look down the aisle towards the front of the plane, it's full of just about everything. I grab the med kit from the crew bin, and a portable oxygen tank and carefully make my way back down the cabin. We are still diving quite violently and I can see we're about to pass through the clouds, which doesn't tell me much (I've no clue how tall they are obviously) but clouds are near the ground (this sounds dumb but I'm not a cloud expert, I do what I can with the information I have)

I climb over the cart, and in an empty aisle I find my other FA, I'll call her Jane, clutching her head and she's bleeding quite a bit. I get her up and in the closest seat and buckle her up. Someone shouts they're a doctor, and I motion them over and tell them to buckle up. As they're attending to Jane I look around for the nearest seriously injured person. Seeing none of urgent attention, I start shouting:

"Get your heads down! Tighten your seatbelt as tight as it will go! Get your heads down!" And I make my way back to my seat.

Strapped in, I call the flight deck and hang up, and repeat the process twice more, our Airline's way of signalling a secure cabin in an emergency. I look out the little window next to my seat and I can see the forest below coming up fast. I've never heard engines screaming so loudly, I've never heard metal groan, but I could feel it in my bones. The plane was moaning and groaning. It was otherworldly.

I swear, at the last possible second we levelled out, the L A S T possible second. After a few minutes the captain called and told me that they had had major control failures and that we were landing immediately.

Long story short, the turbulence was severe enough to damage our control surfaces, rendering our plane about as flight worthy as a rock, and I must say that the fact that the pilots got the plane under enough control to land was nothing short of a miracle. Best bit of flying I've ever seen in all my years in the air.

Jane was rushed to the hospital as the only severe injury and she ended up being okay, but never flew again. I still fly, although I'm a little more weary about whipping that cart out inflight.

12. Graveyarder-for-life knows that fuel leaks are no joke.

Not a pilot or FA but a line mechanic for a major carrier. I go out to every plane I’m assigned and do different level of checks but ALL of them require a good look at the airplane for any signs of damage, leaks, engines still attached, etc. about 99% of the time it’s pretty benign. Mostly just crews letting us know about issues on the interior like broken seat belts or clogged toilets because someone flushed a diaper (the tubes attached to the toilets on planes are much smaller than your household ones DON’T FLUSH TRASH) but the absolute scariest thing we have found after a routine flight that came in was a bit of a fuel leak we noticed from the right engine which really is fairly common if it’s a small amount.

But this was a constant flow like a sink faucet left on half way. Opened up the pylon and found that the main fuel feed line into the engine had cracked flooding the compartment that also house the engine bleed air duct, which is about 600C and above the fire suppression lines so even if there was a fire detected, there would be no way to put it out. Plane was flying like that for at least a couple of days.

TL:DR found a airplane that carried lots of people that was essentially a flying ticking time bomb.

13. rnmurdoch saved everybody.

Off duty riding free to India, charter 747, 4am over Afghanistan the galley oven caught fire while cabin crew were resting. I don’t sleep well on flights. I saw the smoke rolling towards me, jumped up gathered as many non-English speaking attendants together to try to convince them of what was happening, the smoke was very thin and hard to see with cabin lights down. I got pretty upset, and the male attendants restrained me because they thought I was a terrorist.

They’d called for the crew, British first officer showed and finally was able to tell him the story. He was pissed until I grabbed him and pointed out the smoke coming from mid cabin. He freaked out. I operated 747s as a station manager for several airlines out of SFO and knew them well. I ordered him to go forward and up and shut down all non-essential buses and breakers and id go aft. We eventually got it to stop and after an hour we found where the fire started between 2 bulkheads From a short. I was sure I’d die in the mountains of Afghanistan in the middle of a war. Needless to say I didn’t fly that charter service again.

Flight crew are sharing stories of flights they thought they might not survive.