Craziest air travel moments of 2024
Many people traveled far and wide in 2024. For many, the memories began during their journey aboard one of the thousands of flights that crisscrossed the globe each day.
As 2024 wraps up, here is a roundup of some of the craziest airline stories of the last year.
An incident that quickly went viral occurred on Jan. 5 when the plug door panel, which covers an extra emergency exit that is only operable on planes with the maximum capacity, on an Alaska Airlines flight blew off at 16,000 feet.
The aircraft was departing Portland, Ore., and the panel caused the depressurization of the cabin. Pilots returned the plane safely to Portland with no serious injuries reported.
Video footage of the incident shows panicked passengers sitting as wind blew into the aircraft because of the missing door. The incident resulted in a lawsuit against the airline and put renewed scrutiny on Boeing, the maker of the plane.
"Boeing is accountable for what happened," then-Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said at the time. "Whatever the specific cause of the accident might turn out to be, an event like this simply must not happen on an airplane that leaves one of our factories. We simply must be better. Our customers deserve better."
A plane operated by the Brazilian airline Voepass crashed in the country's Sao Paulo state in August, killing all people on board.
The fiery crash occurred in a residential area and killed more than 60 passengers and crew. The plane departed from Cascavel, Brazil, in the state of Parana.
Footage captured seconds before the crash shows the aircraft drifting downward vertically and spiraling as it plunged to the ground.
Aviation experts at the time speculated that ATR 72-500 twin-engine turboprop stalled in midair.
In December, passengers on an American Airlines flight from Dallas, Texas, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, were met with an unexpected surprise after a lavatory water leak reached the aisle of the cabin.
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The water was unable to be shut off, and the leak crept down the cabin during the nearly three-hour flight.
Passengers are seen holding up their bags to avoid what passenger Hilary Stewart Blazevic referred to as "disgusting" liquid, while some attempt to step over the water.
A United Airlines passenger filmed a Boeing 757's wing "coming apart" shortly before a February flight from San Francisco to Boston was diverted to Denver over the incident.
Kevin Clarke captured the video showing damage on the wing of the aircraft that ultimately prompted the flight to make an emergency landing in Denver to assess the issue. Shortly after takeoff, he experienced "the most violent, shuddering and shaking" before falling back to sleep, he said at the time.
"A pilot came walking down the aisle and went behind me," Clarke told Lawrence Jones on "Fox & Friends."
"I looked out the window, went back to the cockpit and came on the PA system and said, 'We're going to be diverted to Denver. There's some minor damage to… front of the wing.' So I immediately threw my window open to look at the wing and the trailing edge of the strut was totally… destroyed like you see in a picture."
"At that point I'm like, well, that's not a little damage, but… the United pilot's competent enough to get us to Denver," he continued. "I guess we're on our way."
The Boeing 757-200 with 165 passengers aboard landed in Denver to "address an issue with the slat" on one of its wings. Passengers were put on a different plane and arrived later in the day in Boston.
Slats are movable panels on the front or leading edge of the wing and are used during takeoffs and landings.
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A few days into 2024, an irate passenger allegedly punched a flight attendant before he was escorted off the plane.
American Airlines flight 1497 from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas to Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport in Montana on Jan. 3 was diverted mid-trip due to an unruly passenger.
The plane was forced to divert to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport in Texas after Keith Edward Fagiana repeatedly punched a flight attendant. The incident began after another passenger complained that Fagiana was kicking his chair, according to authorities.
After a flight attendant became involved, Fagiana allegedly became enraged and began punching the American Air Lines employee in the stomach.
J.P. Gallagher, an elected official from Montana, told FOX 4 that his wife alerted him to the enraged voyager.
"My wife kind of started hitting me and saying, you know, getting me to pay attention that something was happening," Gallagher said. "There was a drink cart between us and the incident. So I couldn't see a lot of what was going on, but I could hear some yelling and some, you know, cussing and, you know, the flight attendant saying, stop it."
Fox News Digital's Madeline Coggins, Bailee Hill, Ashley J. DiMella and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.