happens far more often than you might think, but it this year’s been especially weird with everything from corpses and human heads to tigers and maggots turning up aboard airliners. Just last month a crew cleaning a Malaysian Airlines jet found a stiff in the lavatory.

So often these stories sound like urban myths, but no. This stuff really happens, which makes you wonder just why we’re all enduring the hell of TSA security checks. In any event, we’ve done some digging and compiled a list of some of the more bizarre things we never, ever want to find on our flights — but, if the past is any guide, just might.

Dead people: This happens with some regularity. A cleaning crew boarded a Malaysian Airlines 737 in August to discover a dead passenger and his syringe in a lavatory. Earlier this year at Tokyo Narita, authorities found a frozen stowaway in the wheelwell of a Delta Airlines 747 just in from New York. Similar stories have been reported in Riyadh, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Not everyone dies in flight — a 20-year-old Romanian survived a 90-minute hop from Vienna to London in June.

Tiger cub: OK, this one didn’t actually make it onto the plane, but it was close. A woman traveling from Bangkok to Iran last month tried to smuggle a drugged tiger cub among the stuffed animals in her carry-on bag. The woman denied the cat was hers and told authorities someone had asked her to carry the bag. It didn’t work — she faces prison time and a fine.

Human heads: One day while working the ramp at Little Rock airport one day in June, a Southwest Airlines employee stumbled on a shipment of boxes containing human heads – 45 of them. Turns out they were bound for a neurosurgeon training lab in Ft. Worth, but Little Rock authorities hung onto them until paperwork could be double-checked. “I don’t just want to ship body parts all over the country without knowing their origin,” the county coroner told CBS.

Maggots: Also in June, US Airways flight bound for Charlotte returned to the gate in Atlanta after maggots fell from an overhead bin. Turns out they’d been feeding on a package of spoiled meat a passenger inexplicably packed into his luggage. “It only takes one maggot to upset your world,” one passenger on the flight told the Associated press. US Airways fumigated the plane after it landed in Charlotte, and was kind enough to hold all connecting flights.

Corrosive cleaning fluid : A woman was taken to Vancouver General Hospital’s burn unit in February after an industrial strength drain cleaner stowed in a passenger’s carry on luggage leaked out of an overhead bin and onto her face.

Exotic birds: In 2009, 46-year old Sony Dong flew from Vietnam to Los Angeles with 14 live birds hidden in his pants. The birds, which included red-whiskered bulbuls, magpie robins, and shama thrushes, were fastened to his calves with pieces of cloth. Police arrested and charged Dong with bird smuggling after noticing bird crap on his socks and feathers poking out from the bottom of his pants.

Scorpions: David Sullivan was napping on a United Airlines flight to Vermont three years ago when he woke with stabbing pain in his leg. “It felt like I was being jabbed with a sharp piece of plastic or something,” he told USA Today. He didn’t give it another thought until he experienced another stab at the baggage claim. At that point, a a scorpion fell from his pant leg onto the floor. A visit to the doctor set him right, and he became something of a local celebrity. “We don’t get too many scorpion bites in Vermont,” a local doctor said.

Crocodiles: In an incident that makes the TSA the definition of efficiency, Cambodian security agents allowed Enrique Yu Castillo to fly to Manila with three crocodiles in his carry on bag in 2006. Authorities in Manila weren’t so lenient. The crocs, each 18 inches long, were turned over to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Castillo was was turned over to the police.

Squirrels: An American Airlines flight bound for Dallas from Tokyo made an emergency landing in Honolulu in February, 2007, after pilots heard what turned out to be a eastern gray squirrel scampering around in the space above the cockpit. “You don’t want varmint up in the wiring areas of an airplane,” an airline spokesman told USA Today. It was a one way flight for the squirrel, which was euthanized.

Handguns and an assault rifle: In 2007, a 22-year-old customer agent at Orlando International used his security clearance to place a duffel loaded with 13 handguns, an assault rifle, and eight pounds of pot into the overhead bin of a Delta flight to San Juan. It was part of a larger smuggling operation that involved shady wire transfers and clandestine meetings at Orlando-area convenience stores. Authorities say the guns weren’t loaded, and that passengers were never at risk.

And those are just the items that made it past security. Passengers have attempted to board planes with fireworks, fish, butterflies, a pair of garden gnomes, livestock, smoked bushmeat, tires and a nine pound chihuahua stuffed into a weekend bag. In April, an elderly German couple attempted to get on a flight to Berlin, when airport personnel noticed that the wheelchair bound, Ray Ban wearing, 91-year-old  husband was dead, and  had been for at least 12 hours. His wife was arrested for failing to report a death, but the charges were recently dropped.

Got a story of your own? Use the Reddit widget below to tell us about the craziest, grossest and/or and scariest thing you’ve seen on a plane.

Photo: Peter Davis / Flickr

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Authors: Dave Demerjian

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