Your Scariest Flying Experience
- Thread starter Acylum
- Start date
ORD/DCA
American flight. I think it was a 737-800 or something in that genre. Roughly a decade ago.
Terrible storms on the East Coast that night. We come in from the north, lightning flashing outside the windows, on the famous "river visual" that follows the Potomac down to land at DCA.
The flight is a roller coaster the whole way. Up. Down. Side to side. Loud banging sounds. Almost make it to the runway before I hear the engines throttle up full and they go around back into the pattern.
Try again. Exact same thing. Bouncing around, loud concerning sounds, lightning flashing, get close but can't land the thing on a difficult approach and they throttle up full and go around one more time.
Before the third try, the pilot gets on and says, "We're going to try this one more time. If not, we're low enough on fuel we're going to need to divert to Dulles... or Philly." He sounds concerned. I don't have access to any weather radar, but it sounds like Dulles and BWI might be having the same problems.
...PHL seems awfully far away all the sudden.
Third try. Even rougher than the last two. The engines seem louder/the approach seems faster. But they make it through, make that hard right turn at the last second, and get it down. I've never landed on a carrier into arrestor wires, but the "pancake" onto the runway at DCA was the hardest landing of my life. A few people yelped and a few bags fell out from the overhead bins, but we made it and went to the gate.
Along the way, the pilot gets on and says, "Folks, I flew F-4s over Vietnam for Uncle Sam back in the day, and that might have been the roughest landing of my life. Thanks for sticking with me for it."
I found the whole thing sort of exhilarating but for many it was not a fun night.
American flight. I think it was a 737-800 or something in that genre. Roughly a decade ago.
Terrible storms on the East Coast that night. We come in from the north, lightning flashing outside the windows, on the famous "river visual" that follows the Potomac down to land at DCA.
The flight is a roller coaster the whole way. Up. Down. Side to side. Loud banging sounds. Almost make it to the runway before I hear the engines throttle up full and they go around back into the pattern.
Try again. Exact same thing. Bouncing around, loud concerning sounds, lightning flashing, get close but can't land the thing on a difficult approach and they throttle up full and go around one more time.
Before the third try, the pilot gets on and says, "We're going to try this one more time. If not, we're low enough on fuel we're going to need to divert to Dulles... or Philly." He sounds concerned. I don't have access to any weather radar, but it sounds like Dulles and BWI might be having the same problems.
...PHL seems awfully far away all the sudden.
Third try. Even rougher than the last two. The engines seem louder/the approach seems faster. But they make it through, make that hard right turn at the last second, and get it down. I've never landed on a carrier into arrestor wires, but the "pancake" onto the runway at DCA was the hardest landing of my life. A few people yelped and a few bags fell out from the overhead bins, but we made it and went to the gate.
Along the way, the pilot gets on and says, "Folks, I flew F-4s over Vietnam for Uncle Sam back in the day, and that might have been the roughest landing of my life. Thanks for sticking with me for it."
I found the whole thing sort of exhilarating but for many it was not a fun night.
emanates through the cabin...
Was that in about 1999-2000 timeframe (I don't remember exact year)? Wife and I were stuck on the tarmac in Detroit trying to fly to Miami to cruise. I had built in a 6 hour cushion to cover delays, but got there too late, boat left without us. Royal Caribbean put us up in motel in Miami, then flew us to Bahamas to catch up with the boat next morning.
As for flying experiences:
* slid off the tarmac on ice in Peoria once
* landed in blizzard at Moline (very late at night and last flight of day) plane couldn't taxi to jetway and MLI didn't have a tug, so we deplaned out on runway and walked across airfield to the terminal
* same as a couple others have commented, wind shear when landing caused the wing to dip and I swear it touched the concrete
* non-mechanical, but flying back from China, a very elderly Asian lady 2 rows back and across aisle from me was throwing up 14 of the 16 hours in air (that was not pleasant-sound or smell). That was on top of the very aromatic Chinese meals they were serving on that flight.
On the other end of spectrum: first thing that pops in mind is flying over Fourth of July fireworks on a clear night cross country flight. Saw half dozen or more shows from above the fireworks.
Not scary, but strangest/funniest was flying in/out of Williamsport, PA. Very small airport. Get there and check in with ticket agent at counter. Nice young guy. Takes our bags.
Being so small, all planes (commuter only) are ground boarded with stairs. We are sitting at gate and notice the same ticket agent is now loading our bags into this 10 passenger commuter prop.
Next, same guy comes and takes our boarding passes as we exit the terminal and walk to stairs/plane.
LASTLY, same guy climbs the stairs and goes up front to the flight deck. I don't know if he was the pilot or one of the other crew but he sat up there the whole flight.
Also, only place I have been at where the baggage claim was a roll up garage door. They just drive the luggage buggy into the building and set your bags down for you to come claim.
This was all 20+ years ago when I traveled a lot.
Being so small, all planes (commuter only) are ground boarded with stairs. We are sitting at gate and notice the same ticket agent is now loading our bags into this 10 passenger commuter prop.
Next, same guy comes and takes our boarding passes as we exit the terminal and walk to stairs/plane.
LASTLY, same guy climbs the stairs and goes up front to the flight deck. I don't know if he was the pilot or one of the other crew but he sat up there the whole flight.
Also, only place I have been at where the baggage claim was a roll up garage door. They just drive the luggage buggy into the building and set your bags down for you to come claim.
This was all 20+ years ago when I traveled a lot.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
I’ve flown into DCA several times. It seems like the rate of go-arounds there is a lot higher than anywhere else (although not usually weather-related, like yours; they run things so tight on those visual approaches sometimes the preceding aircraft doesn’t get off the runway in time).
I've talked to some pilots. They have a very love/hate relationship with DCA.
The northern approach is a lot of fun but probably the most difficult approach for a major commercial airport in North America. You have to follow a very prescribed route and take a hard turn and line up to land with only a few seconds to get it right. Plus, as you mentioned, the airport can only operate one runway at a time and is cycling landings and takeoffs approximately every 60 seconds. You can do everything right and still get waved off if the guy taking off in front of you was slow to taxi and get rolling out of your way.
The southern approach is much easier. I've always enjoyed looking out the windows at DCA in the evening or night and seeing 10+ aircraft lined up in the pattern, spaced out perfectly in 1-2 minutes of internal, set up for the intricate dance of takeoff/landing down to the second for ~18 hours every day.
I'm sure it makes it interesting for crews and ATC but has to be a whole lot more stressful to manage than flying into some giant airport somewhere with little traffic, more runways than they know what to do with, and really long ones that are super forgiving (unlike the diminutive 7,100-foot one at DCA).
Dulles' main runways are 11,000-feet plus.
