When placing a crafting table at y=+1 from feet in a confined tunnel and the player is right up next to the surface the table isn't placed and the table isn't visible in the world as a block, nor an item, and isn't in the player inventory.

Repeating the exercise with a second table returns 2 tables to the inventory.

This could not be replicated in a flatworld.

Full example in this short screen recording, along with coords and player state information. The world seed is "42" without quotes on Default generator:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIaqirCTAHE