Anyone else ever had a bad/disturbing flight experience?

[Menace Sockeyes]

I flew quite a few times in my 20s: to Paris, Denver, Miami (for the Orange Bowl), Jacksonville, etc. But on one flight back into Detroit, there was bad turbulence, and an equipment malfunction flying into pea-soup thick fog. We had to quickly re-ascend waiting for landing, and circled the airport for over half an hour waiting to slowly descend onto the runway. Pilot explained there was some equipment failure, but we *should* land safely. We finally made it after dead silence on the plane. All these investigators were looking at the equipment when the plane landed. Never have I wanted to fly again. Unfortunately, my wife wants to vacation and visit family in Florida. I offered to road trip, but she shot that down quickly. I know it doesn't make much practical sense when looking at the statistics, but its a hard hurdle after that experience.

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

I remember having such a hard landing at one point that a piece of interior trim came loose in the cabin and fell down. For a split second I thought the plane was breaking apart.

 

[mnole03]

Flew on a prop plane out of Missouri that dropped 800 feet in a sudden downdraft. We were taking off and only at like 3k feet at the time, so definitely a code brown situation.

 

[Tenacious E]

I flew quite a few times in my 20s: to Paris, Denver, Miami (for the Orange Bowl), Jacksonville, etc. But on one flight back into Detroit, there was bad turbulence, and an equipment malfunction flying into pea-soup thick fog. We had to quickly re-ascend waiting for landing, and circled the airport for over half an hour waiting to slowly descend onto the runway. Pilot explained there was some equipment failure, but we *should* land safely. We finally made it after dead silence on the plane. All these investigators were looking at the equipment when the plane landed. Never have I wanted to fly again. Unfortunately, my wife wants to vacation and visit family in Florida. I offered to road trip, but she shot that down quickly. I know it doesn't make much practical sense when looking at the statistics, but its a hard hurdle after that experience.

Worst experience I ever had was when they overbooked our return flight from a Spring Break trip to the Bahamas. We were stateside for a connecting flight, but yeah, um, we kind of needed to get back to Iowa for school. I was raging pissed. Until they cut us checks on the spot totaling almost $4,800 as a penalty. Then I was quite pleased. csb

 

[IowaHawkIT]

About 5 years ago, flying from Springfield, MO to Dallas. There were tornadoes that we had to fly around and had awful turbulence and few drops where I thought we were going down. Flew so far around the storms we had to stop in Amarillo for fuel. Missed our connecting flight from Dallas to CR and ended up getting a flight into Moline at midnight but didn't have a car there so one of the spouses had to come pick us up.

 

[markfromj]

All these investigators were looking at the equipment when the plane landed.

Sure seems easier to wait until after.

 

[Moral]

Somewhere between LAX and Japan I got a pretty bad bloody nose in my sleep, woke up and thought my nose was running so I tried wiping it a few times, and ended up walking through the Tokyo and Seoul airports with a white tshirt covered in blood as well as blood on my face, and hands. By the time I got to Seoul my luggage was lost so I had to buy a new shirt the next day when I got to my new base.

 

[BelemNole]

Several. Stand outs are:
1. Wind shear coming into Dallas a few weeks after one had caused a crash at the same airport - you could still see the scar on the ground as you came in. Several people hit the ceiling when we went into it and lots of people started vomiting right after.
2. Last minute aborted landing in Honolulu because of "traffic on the runway." I was looking at the runway waiting for the bump of the landing gear when suddenly we were full thrust and the plane went sideways. Was an exciting few minutes.
3. We were the last plane to land in Phoenix before they closed the airport due to storms/wind one afternoon. Crosswind was insane and wind gusts were in the 80 mph range. Landing was...bumpy. We were supposed to catch a connecting flight but had to stay the night.
4. About 20 out of Vegas the cabin started filling with smoke and the air masks dropped. People freaked the eff out. Captain turned the plane around and we got emergency clearance to land. Smoke cleared and by the time we landed everyone had settled down and were taking selfies with their masks.

 

[IACub]

Landing in Denver in a heavy rainstorm. We dropped through the clouds then leveled off so fast it felt like we were on a bombing run.

 

[noStemsnoSTICKS]

First time flying into Cancun. Started our decent. Lower and Lower. Could actually see individual trees. Then plane abruptly accelerated back into a climb, we reached altitude and flew straight another 45 minutes to airport.

 

[seminole97]

About 5 years ago, flying from Springfield, MO to Dallas. There were tornadoes that we had to fly around and had awful turbulence and few drops where I thought we were going down. Flew so far around the storms we had to stop in Amarillo for fuel. Missed our connecting flight from Dallas to CR and ended up getting a flight into Moline at midnight but didn't have a car there so one of the spouses had to come pick us up.

TIL there are Mormons in Moline.

 

[Tenacious E]

Somewhere between LAX and Japan I got a pretty bad bloody nose in my sleep, woke up and thought my nose was running so I tried wiping it a few times, and ended up walking through the Tokyo and Seoul airports with a white tshirt covered in blood as well as blood on my face, and hands. By the time I got to Seoul my luggage was lost so I had to buy a new shirt the next day when I got to my new base.

 

[seminole97]

Only had concern in a plane once.
Riding in the back of a Piper Cherokee 140.
My brother was in the pilot's seat getting hours, his friend the instructor was in the right seat. We had just landed in Fayette, Alabama to refuel, so we're in the northern Alabama defined with small hills and pines.
As we're climbing, not 500 ft, I see two buzzards circling off the nose to the right. Mention them to my brother and at the same time he replied and banked a little away from them I noticed the note of the exhaust on the plane changed. There was no adjustment to the throttle or significant pitch of the plane to change load on the prop - it just sounded different, suddenly.
I remember looking back over my shoulder as we climbed away from the airport and realized I needed to make the case to land NOW. If a problem got bad in 15 minutes, we wouldn't have good options.
They listened a minute when I pointed it out, and even though no gauges showed any problems agreed we'd land and open the cowl. The exhaust pipe had cracked (clean through) just off the head. Could have overheated a piston and fried the motor with a few hours of flying time to go, so we needed to find someone mobile to weld aluminum on a Saturday afternoon.

Fayette, Alabama doesn't offer much, but if you have that need, Fayette, Alabama has your man.
We were back in the air an hour and half later.

 

[PoopandBoogers]

When I was a kid, the family was flying up to NY and we flew through part of a hurricane. Hit bad turbulence and part of the ceiling fell off, exposing the wires and cables that run along the plane. The flight attendant was trying to hold it up, doing her best trying to smile like it was no big deal.

Saw a guy projectile vomit into the hair of a cute redhead sitting in front of him.

Hit turbulence one time where I saw the wings bounce a bit. The drink in my hand kinda floated out of it for a second. Things hit the ceiling rows behind me. A few screams as it happened and a few whimpers for a few mins after. A dark complected man was in the bathroom and came back looking gray.

 

[EagleHawk]

Tourist flight around the big Island about 15 years ago. Bout 20 minutes in the pilot asks the guy next to him in the front seat if he is feeling ok, smell that came back said that, no, he was in fact not doing well. spent the rest of the flight with the smell of vomit in the plane.

 

[DogBoyRy]

About 5 years ago, flying from Springfield, MO to Dallas. There were tornadoes that we had to fly around and had awful turbulence and few drops where I thought we were going down. Flew so far around the storms we had to stop in Amarillo for fuel. Missed our connecting flight from Dallas to CR and ended up getting a flight into Moline at midnight but didn't have a car there so one of the spouses had to come pick us up.

Dallas can be a bitch in thunderstorm season which is about 11 months i think.
With over 3 million ff miles i’ve had severe turbulence, half a dozen aborted landings, deicing not working making us fly at 10k feet to nearest airport thru soup, guy drop dead and drug into first class aisle for first aid before he was called (we diverted to reno), return when in air due to issue where had to circle to dump fuel because to heavy, etc, etc.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

26 years ago, flying into Mexico City. Turbulence was awful. Thought I was going to throw up.

 

[ping72]

My wife was headed to a research station in the Bahamas flying in a twin engine plane from Miami.

About 90% of the way there one of the engines blows. But...if it lands then it’ll be stuck in the Bahamas since they don’t have parts there and it can’t take off again.

So they had to fly all the way back to Miami hoping the other one doesn’t go out.

 

[Titanhawk2]

Few years back when the big ten wrestling tournament was in IC, flying back to CR from Chicago, bunch of Rutgers wrestling families on board. It's a straight shot, no turns, so when after 20 minutes or so we started pulling a u-turn, they were oblivious but we were like WTF. We landed back at O'hare and were parked way out from the terminal to be met by fire trucks. Turns out the landing gear would not retract and CR did not have the "crash" support to land, so we had to go back. Everything turned out fine.

 

[BelemNole]

Ah, remembered one more. We went out to Santa Cruz Island when we were in grad school for some geology work with an instructor. Flew in on a little 6-seat puddle jumper and landed on this dirt strip that was sloped uphill. You come in over the water and then suddenly you see the strip on the side of the island and land going up it. Everything went fine until we had to leave. Weather moved in and wind was blowing down the strip. So we had a tailwind and we were going downhill. Plus, it was foggy as hell. So they delayed us most the day. Then they told us to get ready to leave because there was a "window" but we had to leave all our luggage as the tailwind was still a problem. So we get in the little plane and the guy goes full throttle immediately. We haul ass down hill - all you can see is the ocean at the end of the strip. Last minute he pulls up and we're off. We're happy, we think everything is cool now. Everything was not cool now. Once we came out of the shadow of the island we hit the real wind and it literally turned the plane on it's wing. One minute I'm looking out the window at the horizon, next all I see are the whitecaps below. Pilot levels us off and turns it into the wind - then the next 30 minute is the wind buffeting the shit out of that little plane as we fight our way back to the mainland. You could see the nose get pushed left/right each time the wind hit us. We got our bags back the next day. I have not been on a small plane since.

 

[Whiskeydeltadeltatango]

Hahaha. Yeah.

 

[noleclone2]

Only one was during flight pilots were notified we may have some tire / landing gear issues based on debris later observed on runway after take off. We had to get in the crash landing position when landing. And the landing was pretty rough and they stopped that puppy super fast. Had a truck with stairs get us out and busses take us to terminal. It was Atlanta so it must have delayed ton of flights.

 

[cigaretteman]

My worst time was getting stranded at Heathrow in London on my way back to the states from Isreal due to Reagan and the Patco Strike. I had very little money with me as I was on my way home, so had to camp out at the airport for a few days, going to sign up for standby on flights every morning. It finally paid off though, I managed to get a first class seat on a flight to O'Hare. I made good use of the free drinks!

More recently, on my Christmas trip to New Orleans, we made it to Charlotte on the first leg of our flight from Cedar Rapids, and boarded our flight from there to New Orleans on time late afternoon/early evening. As we neared New Orleans, the Captain notified us that the fog was too low for us to land there, but we would circle Gulf Port, Mississippi for a while to s while to see if things improve. They didn't, so we landed in Jackson, Mississippi. They had no infrastructure to handle us, so after sitting there a few hours, they decided to refuel the plane and fly us back to Charlotte. We got therer around 4 am.When there, they informed us that since it was weather, there would be no hotel vouchers or meal vouchers, and that our flight would be continued at 11 AM. We tried to sleep a while on the airport floor, but then people started coming inf for the early morning flights. Eventually, we lucked out in getting a seat on an 8 AM flight, and finally made it to NO a day late.

On our way back, we successfully flew to Chicago, and got on the plane for our flight to CR. Everything was going welll, although it was snowing on the ground, until we neared the eastern Iowa airport, and were informed by our captain that there had been a mechanical problem on takeoff and we had to go back to Chicago. After several hours of waiting there, they found us another plane, and we alll got aboard. After a few minutes the captain informed us that the flight had been cancllled! At least we got hotel and meal vouchers for that one, and were able to fly back to Iowa the next day.

After some research, we found out that the New Orleans airport lacked some important part of guidance equipment for pilots flying through fog due to some constructinon projects there.

 

[peacehawk]

Too many to list but flying (in first) is the only way to go. Always use my miles to fly lie flat first overseas.

 

[The Tradition]

Not a "flight" experience but coming home from boot camp they loaded us in the plane and then decided we would not be taking off because of t-storms.

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? Let us back into the gate and call us when y'all are ready to fly.

But no.... we had to sit there for about two hours.

 

[wjr1818]

You know things are bad when I read the headline and thought you were talking about crazy people who can't follow simple COVID mask rules and therefore disturbing the crowd. How times have changed.

 

[Whiskeydeltadeltatango]

You know things are bad when I read the headline and thought you were talking about crazy people who can't follow simple COVID mask rules and therefore disturbing the crowd. How times have changed.

Yea, these stories actually have ****ed up shit as part of them.

 

[wjr1818]

But back to the question...was playing a football game at Missouri State one year probably 10+ years ago. Bad weather where we were flying out of and got delayed from 11 AM until 5 pm. Ended up getting out and flying down to Springfield but there were 60 mph winds and weren't able to land.

Ended up landing at KC airport and sat on tarmac for 3 hours seeing if we could land. It ended up being 11 pm, and we decided to walk 1 mile since you can't find busses for 100 people, head to Marriott, sleep, and leave in the morning.

It was a 11 AM game. We all got 5 hours of sleep and flight left at 7 AM. Busses were delayed and we walk into the stadium with 50 minutes left on the clock. Typically we are there 2 1/2 hours prior.

Small warm up, kicked there ass, and left. My old teammates still talk about it today.

 

[jberesford]

Me personally? No. But for the sake of adding to the conversation, my airline pilot buddy did have a woman die on his flight to Atlanta when he was still a regional captain shortly before covid. He randomly walked into the bar I work at part time one night. Was surprised to see him as I thought he was gone til the weekend, he's a close friend and we golf together a lot. Told me a lady died on his flight that day and after going through all the FAA (and I believe FBI as well actually) protocols, the company pulled him off duty and paid him for the rest of his scheduled trip and sent him home.

Nothing tragic, turns it was a cancer stricken woman from the Phillipines trying to get back home to die. After ATL she had an international flight the rest of the way... Didn't make it. His dad is a retired career airline pilot as well. Said it's happened to him multiple times on transatlantic flights over the years. Apparently it's not as rare as you'd think.

 

[BubsFinn]

DFW to Austin. I know it was some time in March because I watched the end of the Iowa NCAA Tournament game in the airport. The flight had been delayed due to weather and I was a bit surprised that they called final boarding. Anyway, we took off an turned directly into the thunderstorm. We hadn't been off the ground for 15 seconds and we started getting tossed around like a ragdoll in a dryer. All the way to Austin we flew through the storm. Flight time was less than probably 50 minutes, but it felt like five hours. Lightning struck the wings more than once. The oxygen masks fell, the drink cart broke loose and fell over. It was an adventure to be sure.
What I remember most about the flight is the fact that the University of Texas radio guys were sitting a couple rows behind me. I recognized their voices, and it was clear they were on their way back to Austin after Texas's NCAA game. All I could think about during the flight was that they would get the headline in the newspaper the next day and I would be just one of the other 87 dead mentioned in the third paragraph.

 

[UNIowaHawk]

Engine caught on fire on flight from Philadelphia so that was a pretty disturbing experience… no matter how much the pilot/flight attendant assured us everything was “ok”.

 

[HIWB]

45 mins out of Honolulu to Dallas, one of the engines blew on our 767. Loud bang. Not fun. Plane shuddered, flight attendants got on the phone asking “what do we do?” Pilot says, “nothing to worry about…we do this in the simulator all the time”.
Nothing like turning around to land with fire trucks and ambulances lining the runway. The one working engine put in some OT as we made the turn and approach. Took some time and meds before I could tolerate flying again without feeling like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.

 

[soybean]

I remember having such a hard landing at one point that a piece of interior trim came loose in the cabin and fell down. For a split second I thought the plane was breaking apart.

Was that on a old TWA MD-80 by any chance?

 

[DogBoyRy]

DFW to Austin. I know it was some time in March because I watched the end of the Iowa NCAA Tournament game in the airport. The flight had been delayed due to weather and I was a bit surprised that they called final boarding. Anyway, we took off an turned directly into the thunderstorm. We hadn't been off the ground for 15 seconds and we started getting tossed around like a ragdoll in a dryer. All the way to Austin we flew through the storm. Flight time was less than probably 50 minutes, but it felt like five hours. Lightning struck the wings more than once. The oxygen masks fell, the drink cart broke loose and fell over. It was an adventure to be sure.
What I remember most about the flight is the fact that the University of Texas radio guys were sitting a couple rows behind me. I recognized their voices, and it was clear they were on their way back to Austin after Texas's NCAA game. All I could think about during the flight was that they would get the headline in the newspaper the next day and I would be just one of the other 87 dead mentioned in the third paragraph.

Headed atl-dfw. Weather stops us from landing so we night in tulsa. American has flight in am they cancel die to weather leaving from gate across from us. They cancel due to weather. Delta is flying.
Pilot says don’t worry, better plane, etc.
Frickin rollar coaster. I’m in 1c and FA is crying. Dude next to me is trying to read a paper and unable.

 

[noleclone2]

Not many people telling better stories than the ones on Honolulu Air Flight 243

 

[NDallasRuss]

Smaller regional jet - a lady went back to the bathroom and never came out. Flight attendants tried to talk to and find out what was going on, but they never got a response. When we got off the plane there were airline people waiting to get on a figure it out. Maybe she'd had an accident and was embarrassed, but I'm pretty certain she died.

 

[DogBoyRy]

Smaller regional jet - a lady went back to the bathroom and never came out. Flight attendants tried to talk to and find out what was going on, but they never got a response. When we got off the plane there were airline people waiting to get on a figure it out. Maybe she'd had an accident and was embarrassed, but I'm pretty certain she died.

She was with me.
Mile high club and she had to regroup.

 

[DogBoyRy]

Somewhere between LAX and Japan I got a pretty bad bloody nose in my sleep, woke up and thought my nose was running so I tried wiping it a few times, and ended up walking through the Tokyo and Seoul airports with a white tshirt covered in blood as well as blood on my face, and hands. By the time I got to Seoul my luggage was lost so I had to buy a new shirt the next day when I got to my new base.

That’s just blood thinning. Not flight related. I think

 

[NDallasRuss]

She was with me.
Mile high club and she had to regroup.

So it was embarrassment?!

😆

 

[alaskanseminole]

You mean like this?