Your scariest plane ride?

[FelixDeCat]

I rented a single engine aircraft for my nephew and I back in 1995 a week in advance. The whole week I was wondering if we were going to be a statistic and die. The day of the flight I was thinking that "this was it...I may die today".

We had lots of fun for the $100 hour we had the plane. I did some touch and go landings, etc. But sure enough we were flying over Lake Worth and we we were all looking at the boats and skiers leave trails in the water. I decided to look up and here comes this dot that gets big really fast - ITS ANOTHER AIRCRAFT COMING RIGHT FOR US OVER THE LAKE. I say, "Hey, whats that!" to the pilot and we veer off hard left. They were no doubt doing the same thing we were doing and looking down at the lake.

My instincts were right. I was going to die that day.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Would've been cool.

I never really had a scary plane ride. I've had plane rides that dropped like a hundred feet at a time because of extremely heavy turbulence but I thought it was fun rather than scary.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Would've been cool.

I never really had a scary plane ride. I've had place rides that dropped like a hundred feet at a time because of extremely heavy turbulence but I thought it was fun rather than scary.

You only live once, right? May as well enjoy the ride.

 

[Schadenfroh]

My ride on Oceanic Flight 815 turned into a horrible ordeal that lasted years.

 

[Codewiz]

My flight into Baghdad in 2005 on a C-130. No fire initiated at our flight but they took evasive maneuvers in the descent. The guy next to me vomited. The pilot had us swinging back and forth in a steep decline and it seemed like at the last moment pulled up and we hit the ground.

I am sure military folks are used to it. I was just happy to keep my food down. No roller coaster has ever come close to that flight.

 

[shocksyde]

Landing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming was pretty scary. I don't know it was just really windy that day or what, but the landing was violent as hell. Entire plane shaking like crazy.

 

[classy]

Every flight for me has been scary. I am not a raving lunatic on a flight, but I do have anxiety.

 

[darkxshade]

I was like 4, and my mother put me on this one seater plane and left for a moment. I must've pushed some button by mistake or so I thought because it started moving and picking up speed. I thought I was going to take off until I realized another kid next to me going at the same speed sitting on top of a pony. Damn carousel rides.

 

[chorb]

In a commercial jet in Vietnam (Jet Star) headed to Da Nang. Hurricane was coming through the country and we were trying to land in a city before the hurricane hit.

As we we were trying to land large gust of wind pushed the plane and rotated it along its center axis; I had a window seat, and saw the wing of the plane nearly hit the ground, thankfully we had Maverick as our pilot that day, he corrected and pulled up, and got the fuck out of there.

 

[yh125d]

Back in 95, my uncle rented a plane and took me on a ride. The whole week before I was so excited about it, I told all my friends in kindergarten how cool it would be. The day of, I could barely keep from bouncing off the walls.

We had lots of fun. My uncle almost crashed is a couple times, he looked nervous. He took us over the lake and we watched all the boats and stuff below. When he wasn't looking I threw a wrench out the window and got a water-skiier. 10 points!

He was looking at the water too much, cause he just about hit another plane head on! Moron. He got it turned right at the last minute though

 

[Possessed Freak]

My flight into Baghdad in 2005 on a C-130. No fire initiated at our flight but they took evasive maneuvers in the descent. The guy next to me vomited. The pilot had us swinging back and forth in a steep decline and it seemed like at the last moment pulled up and we hit the ground.

I am sure military folks are used to it. I was just happy to keep my food down. No roller coaster has ever come close to that flight.

My boss was on a C130 that when it left Afghanistan they had an RPG fired at it. Full evasive mode right after takeoff had those in the back convinced they were dead.

Scariest for me was being on a little puddle jumper out of State College PA. Sucker took a hell of a lot of punishment in the clouds and a couple of times you could look up the aisle and see the pilots struggling with the controls. Fun...

 

[BoomerD]

I had the "opportunity" to ride in some of these:

Those CASI pilots were fucking crazy...but they got us in...and back out.

 

[her209]

Its always a "fun" ride on the take off from John Wayne Airport.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I rented a single engine aircraft for my nephew and I back in 1995 a week in advance. The whole week I was wondering if we were going to be a statistic and die. The day of the flight I was thinking that "this was it...I may die today".

We had lots of fun for the $100 hour we had the plane. I did some touch and go landings, etc. But sure enough we were flying over Lake Worth and we we were all looking at the boats and skiers leave trails in the water. I decided to look up and here comes this dot that gets big really fast - ITS ANOTHER AIRCRAFT COMING RIGHT FOR US OVER THE LAKE. I say, "Hey, whats that!" to the pilot and we veer off hard left. They were no doubt doing the same thing we were doing and looking down at the lake.

My instincts were right. I was going to die that day.

Possibly, you had B52s coming across in the approach pattern. Probably about 2000 feet higher than you. But at their size, you can not tell the difference; it is big.

What airport did you leave from?

 

[CrimsonWolf]

Not more than 10-15 seconds after takeoff the plane bucked up and down like a bronco. Some people lost a hold of their books and whatnot and a couple people even screamed. It was over in just a couple seconds and the cabin went eerily quiet.

Shortly after the captain announced: "Sorry about that ladies and gentlemen. Traffic control cleared us to take off too soon after a much larger aircraft and we got caught up in its wake." So basically our little 50-seat Canadair Regional Jet got smacked around like a little bitch by the wake of a bigger jet.

Pretty tame overall, but mildly amusing.

 

[Evadman]

About a month ago actually, but I didn't think I was going to die at any point.

Someone had a heart attack on the plane. Stewardess asked for a doctor and such. The guy was very blue. Just as they were applying the defibrillator, the pilot comes on and says there is a medical emergency onboard and that they were going to make an emergency landing immediately at knoxville. We had about 15 seconds notice, and the pilot goes hard over to the left. I'm not exaggerating when I say we were a good 45-50 degrees left, and 25 degrees down. I was on the isle and i had to work at staying in my seat. I had my left foot on the back of the seat across the isle for a good 30 seconds until we seteled into a steep decent. It was a surprisingly fast landing (but smooth) and hard braking right at the end of the runway. We landed right on the stripes, but the pilot didn't hit the brakes until we were at least half way down the runway, and he stomped on them with full reverse on the engines. I haven't stopped that fast in a car, I was not ready for the amount of deceleration at all. I fly a lot, and have never seen a decent even close to that, even with engine failure.

We flew down the taxiway too, and paramedics were on the plane about 10 minutes after the first 'we need a doctor' announcement, and we were crusing at 33k feet IIRC. After all that, the guy who had the heart attack WALKEd out with the paramedics. +1 for AED's

The stewardesses looked like they had training in the landing. The stewardess in the isle used some seatbelt entensions to belt herself to the 2 seats on each side of her so she wouldn't go flying down the isle.

 

[skyking]

I've been flying as the pilot for 25 years. I've had a couple of those "windshield filling with sheetmetal" moments.

 

[CrimsonWolf]

About a month ago actually, but I didn't think I was going to die at any point.

Someone had a heart attack on the plane. Stewardess asked for a doctor and such. The guy was very blue. Just as they were applying the defibrillator, the pilot comes on and says there is a medical emergency onboard and that they were going to make an emergency landing immediately at knoxville. We had about 15 seconds notice, and the pilot goes hard over to the left. I'm not exaggerating when I say we were a good 45-50 degrees left, and 25 degrees down. I was on the isle and i had to work at staying in my seat. I had my left foot on the back of the seat across the isle for a good 30 seconds until we seteled into a steep decent. It was a surprisingly fast landing (but smooth) and hard braking right at the end of the runway. We landed right on the stripes, but the pilot didn't hit the brakes until we were at least half way down the runway, and he stomped on them with full reverse on the engines. I haven't stopped that fast in a car, I was not ready for the amount of deceleration at all. I fly a lot, and have never seen a decent even close to that, even with engine failure.

We flew down the taxiway too, and paramedics were on the plane about 10 minutes after the first 'we need a doctor' announcement, and we were crusing at 33k feet IIRC. After all that, the guy who had the heart attack WALKEd out with the paramedics. +1 for AED's

The stewardesses looked like they had training in the landing. The stewardess in the isle used some seatbelt entensions to belt herself to the 2 seats on each side of her so she wouldn't go flying down the isle.

That's wild! Props to the crew.

Those rapid descents are pretty fun. During one flight there was a nasty storm system approaching the airport we were going to land at. The captain announced that they were going to stay at high altitude as long as possible to try to stay above it and try to beat the storm to the airport. Then he warned that there would be an "unusually rapid" descent to the airport and that he wasn't kidding about staying in your seats. A little bit later, it felt like he put that 757 into a damn near nose dive. :awe:

 

[olds]

Never been scared.
Had a friend try to scare me. He was a retired TWA pilot and he and his son built an army surplus plane. It was a two seater and you sat behind one behind the other.

He did some stunts to scare me but I figured that since he was in the plane with me that he wasn't going to crash it.

 

[amdhunter]

I once rode a plane with an Indian guy next to me. Scared the shit out of me.

 

[moshquerade]

I once rode a plane with an Indian guy next to me. Scared the shit out of me.

Was it your dad?

 

[spidey07]

Barreling down the runway for take off almost full speed and the pilot slams on the brakes basically aborting the takeoff. Some kind of door sensor went off they said.

 

[amdhunter]

Was it your dad?

lol, no. Complete stranger.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Possibly, you had B52s coming across in the approach pattern. Probably about 2000 feet higher than you. But at their size, you can not tell the difference; it is big.

What airport did you leave from?

http://www.airnav.com/airport/T67

Hicks Airfield (private). And yes, I couldn't tell what kind of plane it was, it was a dot that became big blob faster than I care for.

 

[alfa147x]

Never been scared.
Had a friend try to scare me. He was a retired TWA pilot and he and his son built an army surplus plane. It was a two seater and you sat behind one behind the other.

He did some stunts to scare me but I figured that since he was in the plane with me that he wasn't going to crash it.

Found you: