Worst/scariest moment on an airplane

[Thump]

I was flying back from London and was flying through a 200 mile an hour headwind/turbulence south of Iceland. (I know it was 200 mph because the TV's in the back of the headrests have a channel that shows your location and the outside conditions.)

The stewardesses were in the middle of serving dinner and the pilot came over the intercom and told all of them to cease serving dinners and find their seats immediately and lock themselves in. I NEVER get sick or scared on planes but I did on this one. The food carts were bouncing up and down off of the ground and peoples meals were falling off of their trays.

There were multiple people running to the bathrooms to vomit even though they shouldn't have been out of their seats.

The turbulence lasted for about 30 mins.

It's a helpless feeling when you realize you have absolutely NO CONTROL over a situation.

 

[DEBuckeye]

My worst experience was flying into Detroit in the winter during a pretty good snowstorm. I get sick pretty easily in turbulance. For the last 30-45 minutes of the flight, there was LOTS of turbulance, so much that the captian had the stewardesses sit down and buckle up. It seemed like it would never end- I really thought I was going to hurl big-time.

The scariest moment was flying to England. It was nighttime, so most people were sleeping. We must have hit a big air-pocket or something, because the plane dropped sharply like it had fallen into a hole. Everybody woke up kind of freaked out, and the stewardesses even looked shocked/scared. That was the first time I'd ever seen any member of a flight crew look concerned, and I think that was the part that affected me most.

 

[Golferdow01]

It's a helpless feeling when you realize you have absolutely NO CONTROL over a situation.

Thanks Captain obvious

Seriously though, those situations can be scary. As an engineer, I know that airplanes have back ups of backups of systems, and the chances of serious problems is so minimal. The best thing to do is remain calm, unless you gotta puke of course.

 

[BuckBackHome]

I've been fortunate that I have never had a bad flying experience. One flight had encountered a small bit of turbulence, but nothing major.

I had lunch with a friend the other day who told me his flight into Columbus recently could not land because of wind shears. They tried to land about a half dozen times before they gave up. They ended up being diverted to Cleveland. I was surprised to hear that Columbus only had east-west runways.

 

[Thump]

Seriously though, those situations can be scary. As an engineer, I know that airplanes have back ups of backups of systems, and the chances of serious problems is so minimal. The best thing to do is remain calm, unless you gotta puke of course.

My mom and dad had the worst experience.

They were flying back from a cruise about 4-5 years ago and they were flying into Pittsburgh because the Columbus airport was shut down because that day there was severe weather moving through the midwest. There were tornados in Ohio and Indiana that day. Well they were flying in through this monster thunderstorn and their plane was struck by lightning and all engines and electronics quit. The plane started falling to the ground because the engines couldn't get started back up. Somehow the pilots got it started up and landed it. When my parents got off the plane one of the airport employees said that they thought for sure my parents plane "Wasn't going to make the airport." The airline paid to put all of the passengers up in Pittsburgh that night and fly them back to C-bus the next day. Well the same crew flew them home and received a standing ovation from all of the passengers from the night before.

My dad isn't scared of anything but he said he and my mom were scared to death and haven't flown since.

I am happy to say though that my mom will break her flightless streak as she is flying out to the Fiesta Bowl with a long time friend of hers.

 

[Golferdow01]

My mom and dad had the worst experience.

They were flying back from a cruise about 4-5 years ago and they were flying into Pittsburgh because the Columbus airport was shut down because that day there was severe weather moving through the midwest. There were tornados in Ohio and Indiana that day. Well they were flying in through this monster thunderstorn and their plane was struck by lightning and all engines and electronics quit. The plane started falling to the ground because the engines couldn't get started back up. Somehow the pilots got it started up and landed it. When my parents got off the plane one of the airport employees said that they thought for sure my parents plane "Wasn't going to make the airport." The airline paid to put all of the passengers up in Pittsburgh that night and fly them back to C-bus the next day. Well the same crew flew them home and received a standing ovation from all of the passengers from the night before.

My dad isn't scared of anything but he said he and my mom were scared to death and haven't flown since.

I am happy to say though that my mom will break her flightless streak as she is flying out to the Fiesta Bowl with a long time friend of hers.

Now that's scary. Thank goodness our pilots go through such extensive training.

 

[FCollinsBuckeye]

A few years ago, I was flying out of Toledo after Christmas to head back home to Colorado. It was an early flight ~6:30 AM or so and was still dark when we were taking off. It was a freezing cold morning too. Anyhow, everything seemed normal as we boarded, and taxied to the end of the runway. The plane accellerated as normal and just as one would expect the plane nose to lift off the ground, the pilot hit the brakes. We rapidly decellerated and had to taxi back to the beginning of the runway. Everyone was a bit freaked out. Anyway, we tried again - accellerated down the runway, got nearly up to speed and the pilot hit the brakes yet again. We then taxied back to the terminal and the pilot announce that one of the thrusters, or something, was stuck (or frozen) in the 'reverse' position, so they needed a mechanic to do some repairs. So, we sat in the plane for about another 30 minutes while they worked on it, then finally, we had a successful takeoff and flight. Needless to say, it was very disconcerting to suddenly slow down drastically when you're expecting to take off...

 

[JXC]

Private Sessna. An 8 seater. Friends of my dad's own and pilot this plane. We all few to Wisconsin to see the Ohio State game in 2003. On the way back, it started to get really foggy. So foggy that they had to close the airport we were going to land at in Dayton because you wouldn't be able to see the runway lights. So we get redirected to Dayton International Airport...the brightest runway lights in the area. But before we even get close, the little compus thing that tells which degree you are heading, and that you set to turn and line up things, plus the glideslope all stopped working. In other words, we were flying in the dark. AND IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND FOGGY AS ALL HELL, so it was really flying in the dark.
The tower at Dayton had to instead manually tell us when to turn and stop turning and which way. He'd be like, "427 start right turn............stop turn! Okay too far, 427, start left turn.......stop turn!" And whatever...until he got us on the glideslope...this took awhile. Then he said that a 737 was goign to fly over us, and it was going to be heading straight for the same runway, and to use that has an idea of how to keep straight. So the 737 flew over...and after like 2 seconds we couldn't see anymore. Scary stuff. So we just kept going, trusting that they would have us on the right path. We got down to 500 feet. 200 feet. We still couldn't see the runway. Right before he was going to pull up, about 100 feet from the level of teh runway, the lights came out of NOWHERE, and it was like right on top of us...and we landed. That was scary.

 

[LoKyBuckeye]

I was on a flight where some of the passengers and crew had fish for dinner and got sick. All three of the pilots (including one that look a lot like Kareem Abdul Jabar) got sick so we had to get a passenger to fly the plane. Luckily we had a good doctor on board (luckily he had lasagna). He ended up landing the plane and we all survived.


:p

 

[Saw31]

We hit bad turbulence once when we were flying to Germany. Unfortunately I was in the rest room taking a piss at the time. I missed, a little...Maybe this was the next person's worst experience instead of mine now that I think about it...

 

[jimotis4heisman]

well you see this one time i was flying a combat mission over michigan in an attempt to carpet bomb the place when charlies started chasing me and next thing i knew i was being tailed ny 238956892356892368236583265893265 migs, luckily im not a bad pilot i was able to pull the top gun air break having all them run into each other. then i took ground fire, i was able to surivive with one engine smoking and smoldering due to flux capacitor reasons. but, by the time i got back home i was just in time for a fly by, when ghost rider asked for a fly by the pattern was full. i buzzed the tower anyways.

that should be where this thread is headed im guessing.

 

[Dryden]

I think I was in 6th grade, so I was probably 12 or so at the time, I went to New Orleans with my dad and two of his friends for a convention they were participating in. My dad's friend, Bob, was a longtime pilot/hobbyist and owned a 6-seat Cessna single prop.

New Orleans is a pretty good haul for a private aircraft, so our flight plan had us stopping in Huntsville, AL to refuel. The leg from C-Bus to Huntsville was pretty uneventful, but upon finishing the refuel in AL the prop would not turn over. Turned out being electrical, so the county airport staff drove one of their own F-150s out onto the tarmac to give us a jump. :(

Once the engine got started, we departed for NOLA, only to learn about half-way there that the fuel gauges on the Cessna had gone out, so Bob couldn't keep track of how much fuel he had in the tanks. He ended up working out his fuel consumption, longhand, on a notepad and switched tanks appropriately as nearly as he could guess to maintain even weight distribution on the plane.

At the beginning of our descent into NOLA, we all learned that Bob had miscalculated his fuel usage when he switched over to a dry tank and stalled the engine. The engine, of course, would not turn back over thanks to the faulty electrical, reducing the single engine Cessna to an overweight glider.

After about 90 seconds of chaos and profanity-laced tirades from each of the three adult males, Bob somehow got the engine restarted and we landed safely.

 

[jwinslow]

Kenya Scareways... it's endearing nickname given to it by those who have used the airline. The airport destination was at the base of a mountain, so we had to circle and descend rapidly. What made it much more exciting was that there were tons of air pockets and updraft from the mountain. I've gone thru turbulence before, but this was on another level.

we would be descending normally (with a little bit of shaking from the turbulence), and then the nose of the plane would just drop off. Looking down the aisle, it was like watching a rollercoaster ride as the front cars go over the big drop.

the kicker was that everytime it happened and we'd freefall for a little while, the waitresses would be screaming. I was also 6-8 years old at the time, so that made it more enjoyable.

 

[Buckeye69]

My worst experience on a plane was flying from LA to Hawaii with 5 members of the cast of "Lost." Talk about a freak out. I tried to hedge my bets and get moved from the tail section to the section with Locke. Anyway, I bought as many of those little liquour bottles as the stewardess would allow and stashed them in my bag - just in case.

 

[LordJeffBuck]

It's a helpless feeling when you realize you have absolutely NO CONTROL over a situation.

Exactly why I hate flying, even under the best conditions.

Worst experience was when the plane got hit by lightning, and one of the engines went out; it didn't really affect the flight much, but scared the living crap out of me. The second worst was the kind of turbluence which Thump described, although (fortunately) it didn't last nearly as long (maybe five minutes, although the plane experienced several dramatic "bumps" during that time).