Worst Airplane Flight

[rrich]

I'm sure that all of us have experienced horrible flights. Here are a couple of mine.

On a TWA flight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, barely an hour flight. After a half our the pilot makes an announcement. "There is severe turbulence ahead. There is no way around it. Put your seat belts on and put them on snuggly." The turbulence was very severe, dropping and rising again several hundred meters at a time. I could tell that if the turbulence went on for much longer, I would lose it all. About 10 rows in front of me, a woman bounced off the ceiling and was knocked unconscious. The people around her tried to hold her so that she wouldn't receive any additional injuries. When the plane landed we were told to remain seated to allow the EMTs to take the woman off the plane first. When I got home SWMBO says, "You should have seen the thunderstorm that we had."

The sales representative and I were calling on some California State Government agencies in Sacramento. The one agency that was the biggest pain in the rear demanded an early 8AM meeting. We stayed over night and made our presentation that morning.

With the presentation completed, the sales representative dropped me off at the airport between 10 and 11 AM for a 2 PM flight.

My flight was to Long Beach with a stop in San Francisco. Fortunately across the concourse from the scheduled gate was an airline lounge that I was a member of.

Every half hour I would duck out and check the gate status. I found a gate agent and was told that due to fog in San Francisco the equipment had not left San Francisco. The estimate was about 4 PM. The gate agent was right and about 4:15 we left for San Francisco. After circling a bit we landed in San Francisco.

It was about 6:30 when we left for Long Beach. By this time the fog had gotten to Long Beach. After three attempts to land and no runway in sight we were diverted to Burbank. As we were in the approach to Burbank we were re-diverted to Los Angeles, LAX.

As we deplaned, we were told to get our luggage and report back to the gate for a bus ride to Long Beach. There were three buses and I got into the second bus. As we were leaving, ground control stopped the buses. The third bus had hit a parked plane. (Really) All the people from the third bus wound up sitting on the floor of the other two buses. We finally arrived at the Long Beach airport just after 9 PM. Had I rented a car when I was dropped off at the airport and driven, I would have been home about an hour earlier.

[rustynail]

All in a days work for a jet setting salesman.

[malb]

Let's cast a positive perspective on these, in both cases you got to walk off on your own feet. Generally, most do, but on very rare occasions because someone somewhere rushed and didn't pay due attention, some don't.
Nah, not allowed to fly on anything from a model up these days, but once upon a time I was allowed to fly real ones up to medium twin piston, then had to curtail activities in the cockpit and limit myself to back seat flying, now never, ever.

[markharrison]

Still sounds like more fun than any flight I had on a C-130!

[cava]

Got taken off a flight from China in a wheelchair, and straight to hospital.

Balled like a baby when I met the family at the airport.

Just to be clear the flight did not cause the injury, but it is one that will be hard to forget.

[Fuzzie]

I had a similar flight like that on a Sydney-Melbourne commute in the 1980's. The pilot took off into a thunderstorm and after hunting around for a route through the clouds for a bit went straight up through the thunderhead resulting in crossing a few downdrafts. We went over the waterfall at least twice, dropping severely several times. Back in those days the Hosties brought the carts out once the wheels left the ground and were serving drinks during this. I say about 20% of the passengers lost their lunch that day. After we finally punched through the cloud ceiling the pilot came on the intercom and said "Sorry about all the spilt booze, welcome to flight xyz going to ah, ahemn , where are we going again? When I got home a couple of hours later my wife asked why I was so pale. I figure it was all the adrenalin was still in my system as I was just sitting still belted in to the seat for another hour and no way to work it off. I had involuntary reactions to ANY slight turbulence for years after that!

[AlexS]

Not really a bad flight, turned out quite the contrary, but many years ago, on a Boeing 727 flight from Adelaide to Sydney, I was seated next to the lady in charge of training TAA hosties (remember them?) At the time, I was a Qantas apprentice, but was about to go into the army, supposedly to learn to fly. Shortly after take-off, the pilot announced a problem with retracting the landing gear. The lady immediately hit the call button, a hostie came running of course, and the lady ordered two scotches - one for her & one for me. The aircraft then did a couple of low passes over the tower, then a steep descent and rapid pull up over the sea. The captain then announced that we would be dumping fuel, before returning to Adelaide.
After a very smooth landing we were informed that the problem had been a nose wheel that wouldn't retract, and then indicated that it wasn't locked down. It turned out to be caused by a bent hydraulic push rod. We were given a light meal while waiting for a replacement aircraft, which turned out to be a Vickers Viscount. When we boarded, my new-found friend asked if I'd like to visit the cockpit. Would I what?! She spoke to the captain, and I did the whole flight in the dicky seat. Great fun for a teenaged youth mad on aviation.

[chambezio]

Years ago we had to fly from Tamworth to Sydney one evening. At the time East West Airlines had their home in Tamworth. The flight is only about 40 minutes in, at the time, a Focker Freindship prop plane. On the way out to Tamworth airport the news on the radio warned of strong southerly winds in Sydney. We took off OK and as we got closer to Sydney we ran into a lot of potholes (translated to turbulence). My wife who I was travelling with squeezed my arm so tight, she is not a good passenger on a plane.
Anyway, as it was a night flight, seeing the lights of Sydney laid out below us was very pretty. We flew eastwards down the harbour. out over the sea the pilot hung right as he dropped the plane down for the landing. The strong southerly wind was coming from the left side of the plane so he dropped the left side of the plane down at quite an angle to counteract the wind that was wanting to flip the plane over. My wife increased her grip on my arm at this point. We touched down a little hard but we were safe. When we got off the plane and walked to the terminal the wind was very gusty and at one point got under the wife's dress and revealed her under wear. She was very grateful to be out of that plane........days later we had to fly back.....that flight was in daylight and very smooth
I wasn't really worried about the flight down. I figured that worrying was not going to do any good because we were only passengers and had no control over the pilot

[Mr Brush]

Anyone old enough to remember the pilot's strike here will also remember that some planes (complete with crews) were chartered from the US to do the domestic runs here. I think I only flew these once, but it was quite an experience.

The pilot was your typical chatty type, lots of waffle over the PA before take off, then "OK, let's see what this baby can do". Puzzled looks between Aussie travellers, not used to this kind of patter....

I think the pilot must have been ex-US Navy or something, and more used to carrier take offs. He literally stood on the brakes, wound the throttles open, then released brakes to send us rocketing down the runway. Shortest take off run I've ever experienced in a commercial jet, even if not really necessary at Tullamarine. The climb out that followed was at a ridiculously steep angle - we were supposed to be going to Sydney, but for one moment I thought we were headed for the moon.

Speaking of carrier pilots, the norm these days here (especially with Virgin) seems to be coming in fast and hard before slamming the thing down on the runway - none of your holding off, flaring, gentle touch down rubbish. I often wonder if the pilots are more accustomed to having arrester wires across the runway to slow things down?

[tomartomau]

On our first and only international flight, my wife and I departed Sydney to Amsterdam. On the way over we entered Iranian Air Space (this was in 1998). My Wife noticed a Military fighter on the wing of out 747. It was a recent memory, I'm sure of the accidental Iranian civilian aircraft being shot down by the Americans some years before.
On the return flight there was a fire at Singapore airport and very very bad turbulence that you could see the twisting of the cabin and subsequently a large number of the overhead storage doors opening.
We were unsure if these things were common and we have not travelled since!

[Dibbers]

I'm not a bad flyer in the slightest, had many rough flights and never had a drama with any of them... my wife on the other hand freaks out at the slightest wobble on a plane...

We were on holidays and we flying from Miami to LA via Houston i think it was on United... She was already a little testy because they'd split us up (joys of forgetting about online check in when you're on holidays in another country and on a domestic flight) we were on opposite ends of the plane. Anyway we flew through a storm of some sort, plane was rocking about the hole time and more than a couple of pretty crazy drops in altitude.

When I got off the plane, i was waiting for my wife... she stormed straight past me (pale as anything) without a word... took me a second to realise and i took off after her thinking she hadn't seen me... I had all the bags so by the time i caught up she was tearing absolute shreds off the poor lady at the gate of our connecting flight demanding that we get seated together. The connecting flight was smooth as anything but i had to sit and listen to my wife relive every bump and drop and about the poor Texan bloke sitting next to her who had to try comfort her and offer a hand to hold... I'd imagine he'd gone straight to the hospital for an xray on his hand... Probably a blessing in disguise us getting separated on that first flight, would've had multiple fractures in my hand and not had a chance to read at all!!!

[rrich]

Being technical support for sales in Pittsburgh I had to fly to Rochester, NY for support at Xerox. When in Rochester I would usually try to make a courtesy call at Corning Glass. Usually it was Pittsburgh to Rochester, drive in a rental car to Corning and then fly back to Pittsburgh.

One day the Avis counter person asked if I would consider flying to Corning and bring one of their cars back to Rochester. She said that they had to use car carriers to bring the cars back to Rochester. I said that I would on the next trip.

The next trip I'm on the Alleghany Airlines Lectra twin prop flight to Corning with my manager. It was odd because the plane was mostly empty. Only 25% of the seats were taken, which was a generous estimate. As we're approaching Corning the pilot explains that the approach was "Basically a follow the terrain" approach to the runway.

As we are approaching the Corning airport the term 'follow the terrain' becomes very clear in meaning. Then a quick movement of flying about a half K to the left followed by an immediate touchdown on the runway we landed. The passengers were all looking around at one another and like myself thinking, "We made this one. I ain't going to chance it again."

On my next trip to Rochester the Avis girl asked why I wasn't flying into Corning. I described the landing in Corning. She said that I answered the question that the Rochester Avis people had had for years.