Bad flying experiences?

[UnatcoAgent]

I arrived in Orlando today, but not before we hit brutal turbulance about half an hour out.

All of a sudden the pilot starts decending, so rapidly everyone is looking around nervously at each other, the plane levels and then BAM it drops like a rock, everyone's hands go flying, people not buckled in are half way up the cabin and then fall back down. Then it does it again about 20 seconds later, all while still descending very rapidly. More turbulence but then it evens out and we land a little while later, to much relief.

I just tried to laugh at it, but people were screaming and crying, some were praying, I've never been in a situation like that before. I know these planes are built for it, but man is that shit scary.

I have to fly back on Friday, not looking forward too it now, despite common sense

Anyone else have any brutal flight stories?

 

[ViviTheMage]

shiet, mine does not compare to something like that, did they give you a reason?

 

[KK]

damn pilot must have been talking on his cell phone.

 

[Vonkhan]

Ya, had something really similar while flying in Charleston, WV in a turbo prop. The bird dropped like a stone, leveled, pulled and dropped bad again - people screaming and crying, I thought my knuckles were going to fracture because I was gripping the hand rests so hard. Pilot never said a word ...

 

[Narse]

I have had the exact same thing happen to me a couple times. People just don't know what bad turbulence is like until they experience it.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

this is why i wear my seatbelt when seated, as instructed

 

[Ns1]

I was flying back from Australia when we hit some bad turbulence. Next thing you know the whole goddamn plane cracked wide open. We landed next to an island where I was stuck for a few months. I'm back now but shhhhh, don't tell anybody.

 

[Tim]

Originally posted by: Ns1
I was flying back from Australia when we hit some bad turbulence. Next thing you know the whole goddamn plane cracked wide open. We landed next to an island where I was stuck for a few months. I'm back now but shhhhh, don't tell anybody.

Make any friends on the island?

Your secret is safe with me :evil:

 

[EagleKeeper]

Air Florida flight on the runway at Washington National as the plane in front of you.

Does not give you a good feeling when you find out what happened to them.

 

[Perknose]

Oh, sure, just gloss over the fact that you didn't have any obnoxious kids near you the entire flight. Pfffftttt! :laugh:

 

[D1gger]

Originally posted by: Sabot
I arrived in Orlando today, but not before we hit brutal turbulance about half an hour out.

All of a sudden the pilot starts decending, so rapidly everyone is looking around nervously at each other, the plane levels and then BAM it drops like a rock, everyone's hands go flying, people not buckled in are half way up the cabin and then fall back down. Then it does it again about 20 seconds later, all while still descending very rapidly. More turbulence but then it evens out and we land a little while later, to much relief.

I just tried to laugh at it, but people were screaming and crying, some were praying, I've never been in a situation like that before. I know these planes are built for it, but man is that shit scary.

I have to fly back on Friday, not looking forward too it now, despite common sense

Anyone else have any brutal flight stories?

I was flying from Vancouver to Victoria in a Twin Otter Float Plane and we were getting tossed all over the sky. There were about a dozen people on board and I think ten of them were using the air sick bags. we made a very scary landing as the pilot came in over top of a bridge and basically cut all the power to get the plane down onto the water and we hit very hard and bounced a couple of times. After we had taxied to the dock and we were unloading, there where some passengers lined up to board the plane for the return trip to Vancouver who watched us straggle up the gangway. Half of these passengers, after seeing how green we looked, turned around and left, not wanting to get on the plane.

That was the worst flight I have been on.

 

[JulesMaximus]

This is why I always keep my seatbelt on when I'm seated on a flight. I've been on some rough flights and seen people thrown around the cabin because of turbulence.

 

[fatpat268]

Sounds like fun...

but then again I'm the psycho that likes turbulence. I know the pilots are trained enough to get through it...

 

[glenn beck]

Every time I fly down to Florida I swear I get the same exact thing, except it always seems to be the whole damn flight, oh well

 

[mugs]

I bet those people won't ignore the seatbelt warnings anymore.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: mugs
I bet those people won't ignore the seatbelt warnings anymore.

bwahahahaha

 

[UnatcoAgent]

Most people did have their seat-belts on, but you could tell those who didn't.

I had just gone to the bathroom actually a few minutes prior, I'm very glad I wasn't in that room when this happened.

To make things more confusing, about 10 minutes prior to this happening the plane started to vibrate loudly, you could feel it in the seats, as though the engine was slowing down or out of alignment (no idea here) that's when we began descending VERY quickly. Like, pit of your stomach is coming through your throat, quickly. Then the turbulance.

Maybe it's something to do with the storm front in florida right now, I'm on cocoa island and there's a huge thunderstorm.

The screaming kids did not help things one bit - I'm a little petrified of the way home as I keep getting flash backs of the whole plane dipping forward and people's arms flying up I actually yelled involuntarily, which I've never done before, as pathetic as that may seem.

 

[Drakkon]

I flew from LA to Phoenix during summer one time and we went through some pretty intense thunderclouds - so not only were we dropping like rocks every few minutes but you would see lightening and feel thunder every so often. Luckily the plane was never struck just felt like it a few times from the drops we took.

Another bad flight was coming in to St Louis during a thunderstorm the plane makes it about right over the runway and just drops. It comes down HARD. lucky everything stayed intact and we came to a stop but even the pilot came over the radio and said 'sorry - never come down that hard before'.

 

[UnatcoAgent]

Originally posted by: mugs
I bet those people won't ignore the seatbelt warnings anymore.

I (believe) I remember a time when you didn't have to always wear them, now it's whenever you're sitting down.

 

[UnatcoAgent]

Originally posted by: Drakkon

Another bad flight was coming in to St Louis during a thunderstorm the plane makes it about right over the runway and just drops. It comes down HARD. lucky everything stayed intact and we came to a stop but even the pilot came over the radio and said 'sorry - never come down that hard before'.

Holy crap!

 

[Auggie]

I was in some really really scary turbulence once a few years ago. We flew through the middle of a thunderstorm. I was seated at the back of the plane next to this rather old-looking flight attendant who was reading a magazine. I was listening to some music, when all of the sudden, the plane got pushed to the right side, hard enough to feel the plane beginning to rotate, then we had about a 5 second free-fall, quickly followed by the sound of some intense wing flexing that sounded almost like a crack.

Of course this scared the absolute CRAP out of me, so I take my headphones off and look over at the flight attendant. She's acting nothing happened, reading her magazine with a thoughtful look. I can't take the curiosity any longer, so I lean over and ask her if that was dangerous and if she was concerned. She said it was nothing to worry about, which 1.) they are trained to say to alleviate the anxiety of passengers and 2.) she kinda gave me an odd, quirky look before answering... both of which made me think that, yeah, that was some of the rougher turbulence out there.

 

[MrWizzard]

Originally posted by: Auggie
I was in some really really scary turbulence once a few years ago. We flew through the middle of a thunderstorm. I was seated at the back of the plane next to this rather old-looking flight attendant who was reading a magazine. I was listening to some music, when all of the sudden, the plane got pushed to the right side, hard enough to feel the plane beginning to rotate, then we had about a 5 second free-fall, quickly followed by the sound of some intense wing flexing that sounded almost like a crack.

Of course this scared the absolute CRAP out of me, so I take my headphones off and look over at the flight attendant. She's acting nothing happened, reading her magazine with a thoughtful look. I can't take the curiosity any longer, so I lean over and ask her if that was dangerous and if she was concerned. She said it was nothing to worry about, which 1.) they are trained to say to alleviate the anxiety of passengers and 2.) she kinda gave me an odd, quirky look before answering... both of which made me think that, yeah, that was some of the rougher turbulence out there.

Yea there is a lot nastier turbulence than what you and the OP experienced. Luckily most of the time planes are able to avoid it. When panels start coming off the plane you know you got it bad. B-17 war stories before they avoided it have some crazy stories.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
Air Florida flight on the runway at Washington National as the plane in front of you.

Does not give you a good feeling when you find out what happened to them.

No it doesn't. Wasn't that the flight that crashed into the Potomac?

 

[UnatcoAgent]

Originally posted by: Auggie
I was in some really really scary turbulence once a few years ago. We flew through the middle of a thunderstorm. I was seated at the back of the plane next to this rather old-looking flight attendant who was reading a magazine. I was listening to some music, when all of the sudden, the plane got pushed to the right side, hard enough to feel the plane beginning to rotate, then we had about a 5 second free-fall, quickly followed by the sound of some intense wing flexing that sounded almost like a crack.

Of course this scared the absolute CRAP out of me, so I take my headphones off and look over at the flight attendant. She's acting nothing happened, reading her magazine with a thoughtful look. I can't take the curiosity any longer, so I lean over and ask her if that was dangerous and if she was concerned. She said it was nothing to worry about, which 1.) they are trained to say to alleviate the anxiety of passengers and 2.) she kinda gave me an odd, quirky look before answering... both of which made me think that, yeah, that was some of the rougher turbulence out there.

Eeek.. not good, I believe that same kind of thing downed a passenger jet a few years ago (not sure on what carrier) where they began to spin and the pilot overcompensated, short story the tale snapped off and the plane flew into the city (I think LA?).

Man... not good, up and down is one thing, but when the plane is moving sideways that is REALLY unnerving!

 

[ThePresence]

I landed in Newark once in terrible crosswinds. The plane was jinking up and downm left and right really hard. People were throwing up all over the place. The pilot did warn us beforehand that it was gonna be rough, so we did have some time to get ready, but man, it was a rough landing.