If you've ever been on a particularly bumpy flight, you've probably seen how difficult it is to make a flight attendant panic.
They're so used to flying that you can be pretty confident they've seen almost everything before, and what feels dangerous to you is actually something they know is no big deal.
Still, it turns out that even flight attendants have some pretty crazy stories about what can happen on planes, and an amazing Reddit thread from more than seven years ago is the perfect proof.
It asked flight attendants and pilots to leave comments telling the stories of the scariest things that ever happened on their flights, and some of them are frankly jaw-dropping.
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The most upvoted comment in the thread comes from a now-retired flight attendant who described one of the last flights they ever worked on.
The journey started badly, as they tell it: "We had a self-proclaimed psychic on board who informed everyone that 'this plane is going to crash and we’re all going to [...] die' by screaming it at the top of her lungs as soon as we reached cruising altitude."
That's not a great vibe, but it got much worse when the plane hit terrible turbulence, so bad that "a couple other flight attendants couldn’t help but crying", and then nearly crashed on landing due to icy runways - an experience so bad that apparently every single passenger and crew member got a $350 cheque to make up for it.
Another comment in the thread from an attendant told a story of how they "almost crashed coming into O’Hare" in Chicago.
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This one's a less complicated story, unfolding quickly: "The copilot was pretty inexperienced and tried to touch down during an insanely fast moving crosswind. He should have circled around again. I was seated in the back of the plane (CRJ900). Both passengers next to me had a death grip on my hand or knee. Was covered in bruises."
As the comment concludes, this attendant wasn't the only one who thought the copilot did a pretty bad job that day: "I’ve never seen a pilot so pissed off. He was cussing out the copilot the whole way to the hotel."
However, some of the stories are thankfully a little less scary than near-death experiences. One more attendant chimed in to say that they'd never had a truly bad disaster, and that "the worst thing that has every happened to me was being punched in the face by a very horrible four-year-old girl. That was genuinely pretty scary because I had never felt compelled to punch a child in the face before, really had to restrain myself that day."
Featured Image Credit: Jupiterimages/ Greg Bajor/ Getty