16 travel writers reveal the weirdest things they've ever seen on a plane

Universal Pictures

Things get weird in the air. Especially when you're packed into a metal tube of recycled air with stressed out, often sleep-less strangers, each with a ridiculously small amount of personal space.

And as you rack up those frequent flier miles, it's only a matter of time before you witness behavior so outrageous you wish you would have just stayed on the ground. To get the scoop on some of the strangest occurrences in the open skies, I asked a bunch of travel writers the most unusual behavior they've witnessed on airplanes. And yeah, it's almost worse than that "Grey's Anatomy" "Turbulence" episode.

"This continued for quite a while, and eventually, we fell asleep."

Unsplash/Ross Parmly

"On a red-eye from LA to Guatemala City, we got upgraded to business class, which never happens. Shortly after takeoff, the woman sitting behind my husband starting banging on his seat back, and generally just getting really agitated that her TV didn't work. This continued for quite a while, and eventually, we fell asleep.

"When we woke up for landing the next morning, we saw the woman had been moved to another seat, and we got to chatting with the flight attendant, who pointed out the woman had ripped the entire TV unit out of the seat back while in flight." — Katie Matthews

"Then she let her dog, who was dyed pink, out of its cage."

Kevin Coombs/Reuters

"A woman sat in the middle seat next to me on a flight from the US to Quito. After takeoff, I suggested she move to the empty aisle seat so we’d both be more comfortable. She said 'no.' Then she let her dog, who was dyed pink, out of its cage. It kept trying to sit on me.

"I insisted she move. She begrudgingly agreed but gave me dirty looks all flight. Her dog kept creeping over to me. I don’t know why the flight attendants allowed it." — Johanna Read

"A few minutes later, she came shuffling down the aisle as fast as she could to come get me."

Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock

"On a flight from Detroit to Beijing, my mom got up to use the restroom at the back of the plane. A few minutes later, she came shuffling down the aisle as fast as she could to come get me. I followed her to the galley, and she pointed out the porthole — you could see the arctic circle below us!

"The stewardess had told her to take a look when she came out of the loo and my mom wanted me to see it, too. We stood there for a while just watching all the ice below us and the stewardess kept our wine glasses full." — Meghan O'Dea

See the rest of the story at Business Insider