Woman Swaps Seats With Kid on Plane, Couldn't Predict What He Would Do Next

Newsweek

a day ago

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A Denver woman says she narrowly avoided a travel nightmare on a United Airlines flight after making a split-second decision to switch seats with a young child—unknowingly sidestepping a midair vomit incident that would leave his father in the "splash zone."
The incident was detailed in a video was posted by Chelsea Anderson (@chelseaexplainsitall on TikTok and @Chelsea_Explains on Instagram), a 33-year-old Colorado-based content creator. In the clip, Anderson describes how a simple act of kindness spared her from becoming collateral damage in a turbulent landing.
"Sometimes it's a blessing when a person is in your seat on a plane," reads the text overlaid on the video.
The incident unfolded on a recent United flight from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Denver International Airport (DIA). Anderson originally booked a window seat for the flight.
"I actually prefer aisle seats. I had booked the trip last minute, so the window was all that was left," Anderson told Newsweek. When she boarded, she found a young child, around 3 or 4 years old, already seated at the window, with his father in the middle seat.
A screenshot from a viral TikTok video of Chelsea Anderson detailing her unexpected seat swap on a plane.
A screenshot from a viral TikTok video of Chelsea Anderson detailing her unexpected seat swap on a plane.
@chelseaexplainsitall on TikTok
Instead of asking them to move, Anderson opted to take the aisle. "It was a win win; the dad and son didn't have to move and I got the aisle," she said.
It turned out to be a fortuitous decision. As the flight neared Denver, the weather took a sharp turn.
"The flight was a little under three hours, but we only had turbulence when landing," Anderson said. "The weather was so bad that day, we almost had to reroute to Grand Junction [a regional airport]. I wouldn't say it was the worst I'd ever experienced, but it was way worse than a typical bumpy DIA landing."
The turbulence during the flight incident in the viral post is not surprising because clear-air turbulence (CAT) was found to have increased over the past 40 years or so, according to a June 2023 study published in Geophysical Research Letters.
The study found that the increases were largest over the U.S. and North Atlantic, both of which are busy flight regions. According to the study, "severe-or-greater CAT increased the most, becoming 55 percent more frequent in 2020 than 1979," and CAT is "projected to intensify in response to future climate change."
In the case of the TikTok clip, the turbulence shook more than just the cabin. In the video, Anderson says: "I think what happened is that [the child] vomited with such force … that it splashed back on his dad and covered his dad … it was in his eyes, it was in his nose, it was in his mouth, not a pretty sight."
While Anderson was spared, the child's father took the brunt of the airborne eruption. Despite the messy situation, Anderson said the dad remained calm and composed throughout.
"But the dad stays unbelievably calm," she says in the clip. "He's trying to solve the problem, he's like [telling the child], 'Okay buddy, you threw up. We're gonna try to clean it up. We're not landed yet' … he's so polite and he's so nice to his kid … he's like dad of the freaking year.
"And the kid is also very regulated, which tells me that this is how the dad always acts, not just how the dad acts in public," Anderson added.
She told Newsweek that several people offered help during the ordeal. "I asked a man across the aisle for a spare barf bag, and he was happy to oblige. A gentleman behind us offered the dad some positive encouragement," she said. "As far as I know only the dad was in the splash zone."
She said she was particularly moved by the father's compassion during the chaotic moment.
"Obviously it was a stressful situation and I'm sure the dad wanted to make sure no one around them had been impacted, but I was touched with how reassuring the dad was," she said. "He took his son's mind off the situation and made him feel better while also trying to handle the mess, which is hard to do during a bumpy plane landing."
As the two walked behind her on the jet bridge after landing, Anderson overheard the dad telling his son that "he was the luckiest dad in the world (not sarcastically!)," she noted in the caption of the video.
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