It’s not every day that air travel feels like a cruise, but that’s exactly what passengers experienced on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Minneapolis on December 7. A sudden water leak in the cabin sparked fears among passengers that they would “drown” at 30,000 feet.
The unexpected flooding began when a leak in a rear toilet caused water to rush down the aisle toward the front of the plane, the New York Post reported. Hilary Stewart Blazevic, a passenger, told Storyful that a woman alerted a flight attendant to the leak after using the restroom. Despite their best efforts, the crew was unable to stop the leak.
“It was complete disbelief and a little bit of panic,” Blazevic said, explaining how passengers struggled to lift their feet and belongings from the “disgusting” water that pooled on the floor.
A viral TikTok video, which now has over 7.2 million views, captured the chaos on board. The clip, humorously set to Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on,” the theme song to the 1997 film Titanic, shows panicked passengers trying to escape the torrent. One content creator even joked in the video caption, “The movie during the flight was Titanic.”
Comments poured in online, with many comparing the ordeal to a scene from the Final Destination series. “Imagine drowning…on a plane…in mid-air,” one user wrote. Another added: “New final destination fear unlocked.”
While the incident was disturbing, it wasn’t the only frightening event for Flyers in recent months. In September, an Avianca Airlines flight to Colombia experienced severe turbulence, causing passengers to hold their seats and pray.