No doubt on this!Which airport? If it's to Reagan, you're in for a fun final approach.
Your wild plane ride stories, please
- Thread starter pourcyne
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So many bad stories usually O'Hare was involved. Once, I swear we dropped at least a 100 ft twice coming into O"Hare, people screaming and crying. Worse for me was a whole day spent in O,Hare with little kids coming home from Disney. One delay after another, cancel after cancel, 5 inches of snow. The next day we found out two planes hit eachother causing most of the problems. The kicker was the flight we were scheduled for 730 and sitting waiting and the guy next to me says we aren't leaving on this plane. I ask and he says this plane and next at 10 going to dsm are half full, the airline will have a problem with this one. Sure enough, they came up with some equipment failure BS.
LaGuardia is not a fun place to land when you're in a window seat and can only see the water 6 feet under the damn dock you're landing on.
Flew into Denver and just as we are about to land the plane dips and dips hard I swear the wing had to touch the ground due to the cross winds as I was sitting right behind the wing. Somehow I ended up walking behind the pilots and I overheard them say that was a close one.
Also coming in for a landing into Omaha and the pilot dropped the plane pretty quick and then hit the gas the whole time all you can hear over the load speaker is the buzzers going off from inside the cockpit. Not sure we were suppose to hear that, but at the time it was a little nerve rattling.
Other then those two just the typical storms and turbulence.
Also coming in for a landing into Omaha and the pilot dropped the plane pretty quick and then hit the gas the whole time all you can hear over the load speaker is the buzzers going off from inside the cockpit. Not sure we were suppose to hear that, but at the time it was a little nerve rattling.
Other then those two just the typical storms and turbulence.
- Jun 20, 2006
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Now that I'm at a computer and not my phone I'll add a little more.
First one we landed in Minneapolis and pulled up to the gate. I was way in the back. I just stood up when something shook the whole plane. Knocking me back into the seat. A service truck kind of shaped like a bread truck hit the wing hard enough it sheared of the A post of the truck cab. I got to my connecting gate and it was facing the gate where the accident occurred and by that time there were fire trucks and sirens everywhere. I always say that I survived a plan crash based on this.
Second one we were on the way back from Jamaica and circled O'hare forever. They finally let us descend and we descended way faster than I ever have before. Part way down the sky lit up and there was a huge bang. There were sparks inside the cabin. I really thought part of the plane blew up. There was silence for a long time. I was starting to think we should check the cabin to make sure it was still there. Finally the captain came on and said "Ladies and Gentlemen that's about as close to lightning and you are every going to want to get." That was still the roughest descent I ever had.
When I was a teenager, we went to a fly in outpost in Canada. Took off from Red Lake, Ontario in a plane with pontoons at around dawn.
Pilot looked like he had just rolled out of the bar. Plane sounded like a lawn mower on steroids. I was nervous, but nowhere near as nervous as I would be now.
Pilot looked like he had just rolled out of the bar. Plane sounded like a lawn mower on steroids. I was nervous, but nowhere near as nervous as I would be now.
I have flown to and from Japan and all over the the US, but the single scariest flight i have ever been on was just 2 weeks ago. Flying into Denver from LaGuardia. They deliberately changed our flight path to avoid some weather, so we had been in the air for about 6 hours. Flight attendant gets on the PA and informs us to buckle in as we are about to hit a "rough patch". No more than three minutes later, maybe it was a microburst, the plane goes into free fall. We go weightless for a short time. Once the plane is leveled out, we get diverted to Fort Collins for "refueling". After we land, two sets of EMT's board to check on everyone. Two of the flight attendants are carried out on stretchers and sent to the ER. Per FAA regulations, we can't fly with only two attendants, so the airline shuttled us to DIA.
I am done flying for awhile.
I am done flying for awhile.
Was on a training flight with my Brother in law. Came in to land and couldn't get the landing gear indicator light to confirm the gear was down. After shaking the plane a few times and giving it some negative g's the instructor basically said well we have to land it sometime. It was a faulty indicator light.
I work in the industry and have been on many flight tests. It is routine do to autopilot malfunction tests during development, which can be a fun ride. Most people can handle pitch and roll malfunctions, but there are seasoned flight test veterans that lose it when you do yaw doublets. One time I was flying with a veteran flight test engineer and we did about 40 yaw doublets, one right after another in about 30 minutes. I never thought anything of it, but this guy said that if we had done one more, he was going to blow lunch.
With 40 years in the business I've got plenty of stories, but not many where I was concerned for my safety. I did get a close up view of the underside of a 747 why flying in a business jet over Long Island. Those are big airplanes when they fly right over you with not much distance in between.
With 40 years in the business I've got plenty of stories, but not many where I was concerned for my safety. I did get a close up view of the underside of a 747 why flying in a business jet over Long Island. Those are big airplanes when they fly right over you with not much distance in between.
Mines not wild but kind of funny. A few years back when I was 15 or 16 I was flying to San Fran with me family. We took southwest which doesn't give you ticket assignments. I had gone to get food when they allowed everyone to board. My family gets on and try's to save me a spot but someone took it so I was left alone. The only spot left on the plane was a middle seat next to a lady in her 40s so I took it. A few minutes later another women in her 40s sits on my right side. After about 20 minutes it became pretty obvious the 2 were lesbians and married. They asked if they could hold hands across me and kept telling jokes and grabbing my leg. Interesting ride to say the least.
This is probably nothing at all but one time our plan misapproached the runway on landing. The pilots lifted the plane abruptly and gunned the jets to get the plane back in the air to reattempt landing. After typing this it sounds way worse than it actually was but thankfully that is probably the worst thing that has happened to me and it really wasn't that bad.
Which airport? If it's to Reagan, you're in for a fun final approach.
Funny you say that. Direct flight from DSM to DCA. We were coming in from the south and the pilot must have thought the ground was 50 feet lower than it was. There always seems to be a bit of a sway coming into National too. I hate that airport.
Having said that, I've flown well over a 100 times and that has been my worst experience. Not too bad. Although I'm flying to Seattle on Sunday...
Any flight landing or taking off from Amarillo is always fun. Small plane, plenty of wind. Always guaranteed to get a couple of drops. On the plus side, it's one of the longest civilian runways, so there's plenty of time to correct a poor approach.
Flying into Seattle, we went from descending into our landing to pulling back up and continuing our flight past the airport. Next thing we could see was ocean. We were basically circling around until engineers gave us the ok to land. Apparently when the landing gear go down, the doors around them are supposed to close. One of the doors wouldn't close. We had to circle until the pilots were told it was safe for us to land with one landing gear door open. They even had firetrucks and emergency vehicles lined up and ready for our landing just in case something did go wrong. Maybe there was more to it than a landing gear door.
Flying into Des Moines in the early/mid 1990's sometime in January on an American Airlines Fokker F100. There was a sleet storm in progress and pretty heavy crosswinds. The right side landing gear contacted the runway, but I guess a wind gust caught the plane and the left side landing gear wouldn't touch down. Eventually, the left side makes a very hard contact with the runway. The plane started sliding sideways, but the pilot got it straightened out.
I was landing in Las Vegas one time.....just as we were about to the runway (the moment you'd feel the rumble from the gear touching), we are thrust back into our seats. As we circled around Vegas (which was cool) the pilot said there was another plane on the runway. For me, I always have a feeling of "ah, I'm safe" as soon we level off on take off and then again when you touchdown.
Two fly-arounds, both times for another plane on the runway. The second time, I was looking out the window and we couldn't have been 15 feet off the ground. I swear the wing was in inches of the runway as the pilot gunned it and turned. A lady behind me started complaining about the pilot doing this. I finally turned around and told her it was better than smashing into another plane. That shut her up.
Once had to circle O'Hare for what seemed like three hours because of a fire in the control tower. The worst part of the story is that the guy next to me was having a nicotine fit because his first smoke after deplaning was delayed.
Also once was delayed at Reagan because of thunderstorms, sat on the tarmac for six hours with no toilets, a dozen little kids, and the worst of the Star Trek movies. We were not allowed to deplane because of the lightning.
Was once met with firetrucks at DSM because of a very rough landing due to weather.
Went through some severe turbulence between Mpls and O'Hare once and it was a real hoot, because there were a group of kids traveling who held up their arms like you do on a roller coaster at every drop.
But the most fun was the time the plane passed through a firetruck barrage at Atlanta. We were warned ahead of time. It was the pilot's very last flight before his retirement, and the team had come out to salute him by dousing the plane as we taxied to the gate. It was like driving the plane through a car wash. We all burst into applause.
Also once was delayed at Reagan because of thunderstorms, sat on the tarmac for six hours with no toilets, a dozen little kids, and the worst of the Star Trek movies. We were not allowed to deplane because of the lightning.
Was once met with firetrucks at DSM because of a very rough landing due to weather.
Went through some severe turbulence between Mpls and O'Hare once and it was a real hoot, because there were a group of kids traveling who held up their arms like you do on a roller coaster at every drop.
But the most fun was the time the plane passed through a firetruck barrage at Atlanta. We were warned ahead of time. It was the pilot's very last flight before his retirement, and the team had come out to salute him by dousing the plane as we taxied to the gate. It was like driving the plane through a car wash. We all burst into applause.
