25 Crazy Incidents At The Airport That Had Witnesses Questioning Their Own Eyes

With so many people flying home for the holidays, the travel part can get pretty hectic. Airports are chock-full of every kind of traveller, people catching last-minute flights, families heading off on vacation, folks flying on business and others hauling gifts back home. There’s a constant buzz in the air that reaches a fever pitch at this time of year. The chaos of strangers sprinting past with massive suitcases, shouting directions, and speaking a dozen different languages at once can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re running on little sleep or stressing about a tight connection. And yet, in the middle of this no-man’s land between destinations, some Redditors still found quiet moments to themselves, long enough to notice a few truly astonishing sights while milling around the terminal.

#1

Image source: throwaway92778200, RDNE Stock project A guy eating his sandwich together with the wrapping paper. When I asked him why he ate it he looked me dead in the eyes and said ,,I paid for it " to this day I don't understand his thought process. Just to preface the sandwich was packed in a thick brown paper wrapping and he ate the whole thing even when there was no sandwich left he just bit of pieces of the paper wrapping.

#2

Image source: ThinkingMonkey69, Gustavo Fring I was at a layover in L.A. and I saw a guy meeting his wife/girlfriend (young couple anyway) that must have missed each other a whole lot, wherever she'd been. When they ran into each other's arms, he ran his hand down the front of her pants and her's into his. I was like, "Well, alrighty then." lol EDIT: Yes, I realize that in L.A., that doesn't even make the Top 500 of weird things you see, but where I'm from, yeah, that's a little unusual.

#3

Image source: railker, James Watson Airport security, baggage handlers and airport rescue/fire trucks chasing down an escaped Daschund through the grass on the airfield.

#4

Image source: Tight_Win_6945, Şahin Sezer Dinçer I passed by a gate where passengers were waiting, and a man opened up his violin case and started fiddling what sounded like an Irish reel of some sort. I stopped to listen. He was very good and drew enough attention that no one noticed two of his fellow musicians sitting nearby break out their own instruments and jumped in after the fiddler made his opening musical statement. (I don’t think I’m explaining this right.) The musicianship was so good that we all assumed they were on their way to perform somewhere. Quite a crowd had gathered and I kinda choked up a little over this unexpected encounter with art and beauty.

#5

Image source: keen_observer34130, Levi Damasceno Bag fire/explosion on the main TSA checkpoint at DEN airport. Flames shot out like 25ft out of the Xray machine, and officers/passengers alike just started scrambling for the exits in a full-on evacuation. Bags & luggage just left scattered behind on the checkpoint and everything. It was difficult at first to tell if it was someone playing a prank and bringing a lit firework, or was it a legit IED detonation attempt. Luckily some TSA officers were able to grab some fire extinguishers and put out the small blaze in a matter of minutes. But it was nuts to see the response. Every alphabet soup agency you could think of popped up out of nowhere: Denver fire/PD, FBI, ATF, DEA, Air Marshals Service all showed up to investigate, they all got there so fast. They weren’t playin’. Within 90minutes, it was determined that it was just some dude’s lithium ion battery from a vape ignited next to a can of Axe that caused the inferno - and the checkpoint was back up and running again. Made the local news that evening!

#6

Image source: donner_dinner_party, Atlantic Ambience This has to be approximately 1999 in the Las Vegas airport. Late in the evening at the gates was a family. Mom, very drunk dad and several kids. Dad is being denied boarding the plane due to his drunkenness. Oldest kid (young teen) is begging mom to get on the plane and fly the kids home. From what I overhear, dad has gambled any money they had left and they don’t have enough to get a room for the night or eat. Mom is wavering back and forth and won’t leave the husband. Kids seem scared and just want to go home. Last I saw, mom looked like she was standing by her man and the family was not going to get on the plane. I was only 20 at the time and didn’t want to get involved in their drama, but an older me would have begged the mom to leave her drunk, gambling husband behind and take her kids home. Poor kids.

#7

Image source: cotasen, Atlantic Ambience Back in the late 90s, so pre 9/11, I was going through security at LaGuardia in NY. There’s a family ahead of me sending their bags through the X-ray machine and everything stops. They pull a bag and open it up and pull out a big butcher knife. The mother turns to the son, who was 11-12, and screams “WHY THE HELL DID YOU PUT THAT IN YOUR BAG!?! THAT’S ONE OF MY GOOD KNIVES! I PAID $80 FOR THOSE KNIVES!!!” All the kid could do was shrug his shoulders and say “I don’t know. I thought I might need it.” They confiscated the knife much to the mom’s dismay and let them go on their way.

#8

Image source: BigJoeBob85, Jean-Paul Wettstein Saw 2 penguins walking through the security xRay at San Jose airport. No leashes just waddling through like they knew the process.

#9

Image source: Proof_Baker_8292, Diana Polekhina Standing in a boarding line bound for Thailand from Perth, Oz I heard a sneeze further back in the line. About 1 second later a full set of teeth went flying by with a guy chasing after them. I guess he sneezed out his set of false teeth and didn’t want to lose them.

#10

Image source: SigmaSeal66, Andrea Piacquadio A woman going through the security screening scanner topless. There was a language barrier and the TSA agent insisted threateningly that she had to remove her jacket, not understanding that she didn't have anything on underneath it.

#11

Image source: Littleleicesterfoxy, MART PRODUCTION We were going through security and a bunch of people just in front of us were told they weren’t allowed to take their bottles of spirits through (idk why it was a surprise, fairly standard). They then just drank about three bottles of spirits there and then as they didn’t want to throw them away. They were Scottish in case anyone was wondering.

#12

Image source: GiraffesScareMe, Getty Images The x-ray thing buzzed on me and during the patdown the agent literally knocked on my dong bulge like he was knocking on a door.

#13

Image source: classiccourtney, Martin Péchy I saw a woman completely miss her flight while sitting at her gate. She was reading and realized as they closed the boarding door that all zones had boarded. She wasn’t even wearing headphones. Just totally unaware of her surroundings as she was deep in her book. The gate agent refused to reopen the door and she watched through the window as her plane left without her.

#14

Image source: liveonislands, Sem Steenbergen A dude rolling on the up escalator. Not on purpose, he stumbled, dropped all his s**t on the escalator and proceeded to roll, in a kind of sideways crouched position, down the up escalator. But, because it was going up, he was staying in place. We arrived at the bottom, saved his stuff, stopped him and the escalator. Could have been bad and I'm sure he felt it after the alcohol wore off.

#15

Image source: Present_Yak_6169, cottonbro studio Saw a guy walk away from security and he left one shoe. I’m like, how do you not realize you’re missing a shoe???

#16

Image source: Corndog881, Curated Lifestyle I used to carry around a spent Ak47 round in my wallet. Long story short when deployed with the Army it had hit my bed where I sleep while I wasn't there. I carried it as a trophy and reminder of good luck. Anyway, I took it with me through security and TSA freaked out. It was obviously spent with no case or powder and deformed bullet from impact, but TSA agents reacted like it was a live round and I was a terrorist and swarmed me and held me until police got there. Police luckily laughed at them and let me keep it but suggested I don't take it through TSA security in the future. So it sits in my desk now.

#17

Image source: MairzyDonts, Nashua Volquez-Young Going through TSA in the Los Angeles airport. They used the millimeter wave scanner; put your feet on the shoe prints on the floor and raise your hands slightly above your head. There is an older lady in front of me and it was her turn to enter the scanner. The agents tell her how to stand. She puts her feet on the shoe prints, leans forward and places her hands well above her head and on the wall. An agent yells at her asking what she thinks she is doing. She yells back, “I thought you were telling to me to assume the position!” The TSA agents all started laughing. Good thing I got to the airport early. That line didn’t move for a while as the agents tried to explain to her how they wanted her to stand.

#18

Image source: Quinkydink, Curated Lifestyle I was in Line at immigration to get back into the US and an immigration officer yells out, does anyone speak Spanish? I reply, I do. He ushers me over and he tells me to translate to an old Hispanic lady. “Tell her the next time she comes through here, I will take her permanent residence card right here and she will be denied entry into the US”. Apparently your not supposed to be out of the country for more than six months at a time within a year. She wasn’t in America in over a year. When I told her, what the agent was saying she started to cry. I felt bad.

#19

Image source: filthy_lucre, Getty Images It was an overbooked flight and two guys started arguing over which one would have the privilege of getting bumped because they both wanted a free flight voucher.

#20

Image source: CaptainDFW, Duygu During the late 90's at KDFW concourse E "satellite" terminal, where Delta Connection flights boarded with no jetways... airstairs only. I saw a sixty-ish year old woman come out of the terminal holding her boarding pass at arm's length in front of her like a divining rod, and instead of walking to our EMB-120 and climbing aboard, she headed for the first airplane she saw with a Delta logo... which was a 767 parked at the *main* terminal behind us, across a pretty active taxiway... And about twenty of the passengers behind her *followed* her like baby ducks.

#21

Image source: randyuy, Airborne YVR Toronto Pearson airport January 2023, Air Canada customer service desk in international departures. I overheard the conversation between 2 young passengers and the service desk. They were confused about what to do after their flight was canceled and couldn’t find the right info because they had been passed on from one service counter to another, or told to call a number only to be told to talk to the customer service counter. The guy working at customer service started yelling at these confused travellers for being mean to him. He made a big scene and told them he wasn’t going to help them, flipped them off, and then moved on to the next customer in a huff. Again… this is at the Air Canada customer service desk meant to help customers.

#22

Image source: cynicalspunk, Andrea Piacquadio Ooooo I’ve been waiting for this question my whole life! Back in the day when my older cousin got her license, we went to the airport to people watch (bored teenagers). We watched a man kiss his wife goodbye and headed toward his gate, and she was sobbing uncontrollably. She left in that state, and we watched her go down the escalator just BAWLING. Then, the guy turned around. We thought he was going to run after her, but instead another lady came out of a restaurant and they hugged and kissed and left down another escalator together. Scandalous!!

#23

Image source: pinkcloud_8, Eman Genatilan Probably the wildest thing I’ve seen was a guy literally falling asleep *standing up* in the line and slowly tipping over onto people Everyone freaked out for a second, then burst out laughing. Airports are just pure chaos sometimes.

#24

Image source: sdtransier, Ансплэш Степана We were going through security at an airport in Chongqing, China and accidentally had kept some aerosol cans of bug spray in our backpacks. The security officer took one out and started motioning to us about not being allowed to bring the cans through. No big deal, we were fine with them being thrown away. But to emphasize her point, the officer grabbed a lighter from a pile of confiscated items and did an aerosol flamethrower demo in front of us, right there in the security line! Two or three feet of flames, it was wild. And then we were told to head on to the metal detectors as if nothing had happened.

#25

Image source: Lazy-Interests, Yogendra Singh Someone losing it trying to smash the handle off of his suitcase because it was stopping it from fitting in the little box they use to check it will fit in the overhead compartment, dude was screaming at everyone, frantically failing to break the handle.