An airplane serves as one's home in the sky when travelling. Though some of us may be well-informed about etiquettes and the do's and don'ts inside the plane, there are still a lot of things we don't know about it. Here are some fun facts regarding planes, airports and flying in general every traveller should get to know.
Planes get struck by lightning all the time- According to stuff.co.nz, in July, Andrew Little was on an Air New Zealand flight that was hit by lightning. "It was a reasonably smooth flight and then all of a sudden there was this flashing light, a big bang and the plane bumped and wobbled a wee bit," Little said. The plane landed safely shortly afterwards. Air NZ spokeswoman Anna Cross said lightning strikes are "not uncommon and aircraft are designed with this in mind".
Busiest Airport- Well, if your answer is London Heathrow then you are at the wrong end. Incomopedia.com says that the world's busiest airport is the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, at over 96 million passengers a year. London Heathrow is at third spot. O'Hare is the busiest in the world in terms of take offs and landings.
Sometimes there are dead bodies in cargo hold- A pilot told Reddit that planes carry a lot of freight, including human remains (or HR in code). "Some people die far away from where they want to get buried. They're packed in wood-framed boxes, so you would never know what was inside except by the strange shape of them." In October, flight attendants had no option but to cover the body of a woman who passed away during a flight from Turkey to Moscow.
The Runway- Airport with the longest runway in the world is QamdoBangda Airport in the People's Republic of China with 5.50 kilometers in length (as of 2011). The Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport (Dutch Caribbean island of Saba) has the shortest commercial runway in the world, only 396 meters (1,299 feet) long.
Air marshals won't intervene if a passenger becomes rowdy- Air rage incidents are becoming more common these days, with figures showing a sharp increase in recent years. However, according the The Sun, air marshals (if there is one on board) will not intervene if it's just a drunken outburst. Apparently this is in case the outburst is a ploy to distract from terrorists.
