what's the scariest moment you've had flying?

[senseamp]

Take Dramamine before flying, you'll be all set.

 

[Rubycon]

Being told I didn't have to fly then getting a ride to the airport. I hate airplanes.

 

[bobeedee]

Blew a tire when we landed at JFK (PanAm shuttle from Boston-it was a few years ago...); you could smell the burnt rubber throughout the cabin.

 

[senseamp]

For me, the scariest was flying between mountains on an AN-2 biplane.

 

[911paramedic]

The stopover in Nicaragua. Armed soldiers boarded the plane and made sure all the carry on luggage had an owner, they didn't want anybody getting off leaving "something special" behind.

And this was WAY before 9/11.

 

[Whitecloak]

the flight was caught in the wake of a 747.

 

[OdiN]

Flying through a bad storm - turbulence and all and seeing lightning hitting the plane.

 

[rockyct]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
Flying into Sarajevo airport under low visibility conditions and heavy turbulence in a small 6 seater military jet.

For those not familiar with the city:
1. Sarajevo is surrounded by mountains, so the approach to the airport is essentially a dive, not something you want to do in a thick fog.
2. The airport was run by French peacekeepers at the time.

I flew into that airport a couple of years ago. It was a sunny day, so no problems, but I do know what you're talking about with the surrounding mountains.

I've had some pretty heavy turbulence one time flying from NY to San Diego, but I actually enjoy it. It breaks up the dullness of flying.

 

[Stiganator]

My friend is training pilots in China and he was stationed essentially in the gobi desert. He said the planes would stall a lot from the sand and would have to just power down the engine and dive fast enough and power back up to get going again. He also gets terrified when some of the students fly, because they only know how to fly by the book. Throw things at them they haven't read about and they have zero intuition as to what you need to try.

 

[zanejohnson]

lets just say we landed on one wheel, bounced, wing almost touched the ground, bounced back and forth a few times before the pilot got it under control and rolled to a stop in the middle of the runway, didnt even pull it into the terminal...everyone was screaming....

 

[Stiganator]

Also personally, when I was flying from Chengdu to Lhasa. I looked out my window and saw another 747 not more than 500 yards away flying the opposite direction. It wasn't super scary, but knowing that VFR is like 10 miles and they were a proverbial stones throw was not encouraging.

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

A couple of years ago I flew a Horizon prop out of Bellingham to PDX. When we were getting up to speed on the runway I noticed the bearings on one of the wheels sparking like crazy and wobbling at the same time. I notified the flight attendant of the issue which scared the shit out of me. Her response was "That's completely normal". Arriving in PDX was horrifying. Landed safely though (With the wobble and more sparking)

 

[TallBill]

Been on several military helicopter and plane rides in the middle east where the aircraft shot off flares. Wasn't really scared, because there aint shit you can do if it's real.

 

[randay]

one time on this flight the treadmill malfunctioned and the entire airplane started to move forward. scary shit.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
Turbulence is always a little unsettling, and I've had some rough, rough flights. I remember reading Airframe on the flight back from Hawaii, which is all about a plane crash, and being keenly aware that if we crashed at sea, there would be virtually no chance of rescue... That was a fun flight.

Oh, and my last night in Ecuador I made the mistake of brushing my teeth with the water. Well, turns out it doesn't take much to get La Turista. 20 hours of flying the next day, and I was fairly certain I was going to die. The pain was so intense that, were it to occur now, I would immediately go to the ER (and I never see doctors for anything). That was a scary flight cause I was only 13 and I was worried that I had killed myself by brushing my teeth.

You drank the tap water in Quito? Dude! You gotta boil that stuff!

<--grew up in Ecuador

I'm one of those weird individuals who loves turbulence and interesting landings, so it's hard to say what my "scariest" moment has been. I'll probably be the one idiot who is grinning like a maniac as the plane tumbles down to the ground in flames with all the other passengers screaming their lungs out.

 

[summit]

Korean Air, from LAX to Kimpo National Airport, the pilot took too long to make his decent, he had to basically do donuts in the sky to descend to the airport, his speeched seemed slurred as if he was drunk, about 1/8th of the passengers got motionsickness, we got an apology letter from Korean Air, I will never fly w/ them ever again. It was a layover in possibly the most smelly (of smoke) airport ever... who has smoking rooms that share the same ceiling w/ the rest of the airport the smoke just flies over the room into the rest of the people, worse airport/flying experience EVER!!!

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: glenn beck
Flew over a hurricane(or pretty close to it), think it was about 3 years ago or so, very bad turbulence going to Florida

Might've been on that same flight, was it from Chicago?

Landing sucked, they flew around Tampa International, flew over Clearwater a little, and landed from the south side of the airport (they usually fly in due south and land on the north side). The airplane was bobbing and bouncing throughout the descent, everyone started clapping when we landed. The power was out when we got home too, nasty storm.

 

[sonambulo]

Not really scary but one time during takeoff, 'DO A BARREL ROLL!!' popped into my head and I couldn't stop laughing for about 45 minutes.

 

[Sukhoi]

Flying home for Christmas there were some nasty ass side winds landing in Cleveland. I swore the pilot was going to dig the wingtip into the ground as we touched down he was banked so hard.

 

[EKKC]

landing in Chicago Midway, snowstorm and no visibility. all of a sudden we passed the clouds or whatever and could see the ground under us 200ft and the pilot suddenly aborted the landing for whatever reason. the plane went into the other direction abruptly. scared the crap out of me. they did reattempt the landing, smoothly the second time.

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
Flying into Sarajevo airport under low visibility conditions and heavy turbulence in a small 6 seater military jet.

For those not familiar with the city:
1. Sarajevo is surrounded by mountains, so the approach to the airport is essentially a dive, not something you want to do in a thick fog.
2. The airport was run by French peacekeepers at the time.

:laugh:

i never really had a scary flight. perhaps the scariest thing, was on a flight back from Israel to NYC. we were close to england and this guy had a heart attack. we landed in Ireland, they let the guy off and into an ambulance, and we continues on our way.

The flight wasn't scary, rather the idea that someone i saw a couple minutes ago, might die.

 

[indamixx99]

Not in air, but before takeoff. The plane's engines wouldn't start because of a malfunctioning air compressor... so they had to call some truck over to "jump start" us. I was hoping they would switch us to a different jet.

 

[cjvon]

I would say flying into San Diego at night during heavy fog. We made 2 attempts but the pilots pulled up both times. We ended up landing at LAX and taking a bus to SD.

Good times. I've had many nightmares of crashing in a plane and I am so glad I no longer have to fly for work.

 

[BoomerD]

I was in 2 Huey helicopters that got shot down. That was...interesting...

Oh, you mean regular commercial flights? By comparison, those have been relatively uneventful. I was on one NWA 707 that skidded on the ice, went about 90 degrees sideways for a ways, and almost went off the runway, but any landing you can walk away from is a good one, so no big deal. (after we all cleaned the crap out of our drawers.)

 

[indamixx99]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
I was in 2 Huey helicopters that got shot down. That was...interesting...

Oh, you mean regular commercial flights? By comparison, those have been relatively uneventful. I was on one NWA 707 that skidded on the ice, went about 90 degrees sideways for a ways, and almost went off the runway, but any landing you can walk away from is a good one, so no big deal. (after we all cleaned the crap out of our drawers.)

:shocked:
I think you win...