Carmela

Just curious to know other travelers experiences on scary flights. Maybe it was turbulence. Whatever.

Mr. Map

On a flight once where no one, and I mean no one other than the flight crew were wearing pants...

Mrs.Map

...and everyone weighed over 300 pounds....

S

It was a private plane. A guy I used to work with was a pilot and offered to fly the plane if we paid the gas. My ex-husband and I thought it'd be a neat treat if we returned his kids on the plane. A light burned out on the dash - that indicated whether the landing gear was down. I vividly remember the sweat pouring down my friend's face. We circled the tower and were informed the landing gear was down, but we were unsure whether it was locked in place. We were followed down the runway by the firetrucks. Everything was fine, but it was a scary ride there for a bit.

Chrissy

Went from San Francisco to Las Vegas in April and flew into a windstorm. There was so much turbulence and it was so frightening I didn't know whether to expend my energy on trying not to vomit or saying my last prayers. Luckily we landed safely but I was still sick for hours. It stayed pretty windy and chilly for our three days in Vegas which was a bummer.

asfs

I watched a gremlin eat holes in the engine cowling. That was pretty scary.

J

Flight in northern Australia from Jabiru to Darwin.....pilot, 3 passengers, tiny plane. I'm in the back seat, the door next to me opens a bit, stuck ajar with a couple inces of clearance. Almost lost my sandal out the door, and I'm still amazed I didn't get sick.

Worth it, though, for the trip itself!

Mr. Map

I was also on flight once where this lunatic named Carmela wanted to know about bad flights all the other passengers had taken. And then she kept saying over and over "Well if you think that was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet..."

traveler

I've traveled more than the average person but not for business. I just love to travel! I upgraded to first class to fly to Phoenix on a continental flight. Wasn't long after 9-11 (which, by the way, I never felt nervous about flying) the stewardess suddenly looks FRANTIC! She grabs a mike and says if there are any people on board with medical expertise please ring a stewardess. I thought the captain was having a heart attack but then I looked directly over to the window seat across from me and the stewardess had gotten an oxygen mask for this guy. I, for the first time, got panicky. I started thinking "Oh my god, please don't let that passenger die ~ here in the air" I was really shaken by the whole thing. I guess the stewardess and the guy that was having the problem thought he was having a anyurism(sp?)in the brain. He got better though and the rest of the trip was okay. Whew..... THAT was my scariest flight!

kathy

Well, let me see - there are the flights into Boston during Northeasters, or the trip on Egyptair which turned out to be on a a converted Aeroflot plane with a Russian crew.

xxx

Flight from Dallas to Columbus during a severe summer storm. Absolutely terrifying. I grabbed the hand of the guy sitting next to me -- a complete stranger. During a stop in Cincinnati, half the passengers got off the plane, organized into small groups, rented cars and drove the rest of the way to Columbus.

Tony

YO, Carmela babe. Wat ya doin hangin out on dis here board. Get back in da kitchen an make me some more macaroni!

Carol

In spite of some of the previous smarmy posts, this one is real...

Last year we were landing in Miami on a perfectly clear day. Just feet from the ground the plane's wings violently dipped from one side to the other. My husband was seated on the left side of the plane just behind the left wing. He said that the wing was just within a few feet of touching the ground. Pilot later admitted that we hit the turbulence from the jumbo-jet that took off just in front of us...

We came home and wrote up-to-date wills, it was that scary!!!

Cindy

Some loony went into the bathroom and lit a cigarette, which set off numerous alarms. That got settled and my husband (who had never done this before or since) had a seizure. That flight crew was REALLY glad to see us ALL get off their plane! Nothing to do with the planes or pilots or weather, just human situations.

xxx

we were on a flight on an airbus which has 2 engines and one engine blew up. We heard a loud noise and lost some altitude. The crew instructed everyone on the procedures for emergency landings while they flew over the atlantic to dump fuel. About 45 min. later we landed in Orlando in complete crash positon with lines of fire trucks and rescue vehiches surrounding us. smoothest landing I"ve ever been on!

traveller

Flying a little Cessna to Angel Falls/Canaima in Venezuela, we landed in Canaima right under the belly of a DC-8 taking off. Scary to say the least but we had to get back on to get home. Coming back, we came so close to a mid air collision with another plane that we could literally see the whites of the other pilot's eyes. True story.

xxx

I had the same experience as Carol. We were flying into NY in nice weather, suddenly the plane violently tossed back and forth, felt as though we were about to roll. Terrifying! The Pilot came on after landing and said we ran into "wake" turbulence - we were following another Jumbo jet too closely which caused the severe turbulence.

aaron

1. flight from boston to london... a third of the way down the runway on virgin atlantic and all of a sudden the flaps fly up and the brakes come on and everything not bolted down goes flying down the aisles. we come to a screeching halt on the runway and the pilot comes on and says... ladies and gentlemen we had a misscommunication with air traffic control.
2. return part of trip... flight gets canceled back to boston so shuttled to heathrow and a british air flight... half way back we hit such severe turbulence... the guy across the aisle from me flies up out of his seat and lands on the armrest. he was ok... but it was quite a sight to see that.
3. lax to san jose aboard southwest... half way to san jose when flight attendants scream for a doctor or nurse or paramedic... a man six rows ahead of me had a heart attack... his third in his life. they moved the other passengers in his row and he laid down across the three seats while two women worked on him. we mde a fast landing into san jose and were met by ambulance. this was two months after 9-11 and there were a ton of cops and ntl guard men meeting our plane. the faces of people in the terminla were great as we exited.
4. sept. 16... five days after the attacks... i was on the first boston to los angeles flight on american. talk about a tense flight. no one talked and anytime someone moved... people would look over and see what they were doing.

Bonnie

Flying from Vancouver, Canada to Honolulu we had bad turbulence that lasted for about 15 minutes. Not scared of flying, but that was a little scary.

Cass

Flying from Dubrovnik to Skopje. Had asked Dubrovnik desk if we would be flying on a jet--yes, definitely a jet. Walk out to apron to see (duh) "JAT" written on the side of a Martin 440 -- 2-engine propeller plane w/tail that drops when not in flight -- passengers board from tail-end. Yes, it was definitely a "JAT."

We took off from the flattened top of a smallish mountain, which is what Dubrovnik airport was, into fairly low and threatening clouds.

Aside: I hate flying because I get quite airsick, but I had been talked into this flight because we had to get to the Acropolis Express train that ran through Skopje in order to get back to our student charter flight in Athens, and also because it only cost about $20 and was only an hour, vs. the 8-10 hrs. bus trip through the "Montenegran Alps."

Back to the story: We reached what the pilot called "cruising altitude" -- I think about 12-15K feet -- and were lurching around between and through what I knew to be cumulonimbus clouds. The "flight attendant" -- a young, scrufty man in shorts and sandals, walked down the aisle with a basket of hard candies: "one only, please. One only, please."

I was now almost as scared as I was sick, and I was watching the second hand creep around my wristwatch: only 45 min. left in the flight; only 42 minutes left; only 39 min. left -- until:

At 29 minutes left (just past half-way), I felt the plane bank steeply and turn 180 degrees. Once it righted again, the pilot's voice crackled over the PA system: "Ladies and gentlemen, due to the very bad weather at Skopje International Airport, we are returning to Dubrovnik Airport. Remain in your seats."

I watched my wristwatch creep its way around until we were again on the ground in Dubrovnik. As we filed into the terminal, we were told that we had been out of radio contact with the ground for most of the flight and they would let us reboard as soon as they fixed the radio.

I could not face getting back on that flapping prison, with or without radio contact, and I told my husband he could go without me, but I wanted my luggage off that plane and I would TAKE the bus.

We ended up taking the bus from Dubrovnik to Skopje, by way of the Albanian frontier and a number of nearmiss accidents along the way, but that's for another thread.