Worst Flying Experience Ever

[displacedyankeedem]

Was wondering what DUers worst flight experiences EVER have been. Mine was a trip to Hartford via Newark on Continental. The Greenville-Newark segment was supposed to leave at 1030AM, ended up leaving at 720PM. When we got to Newark, we immediately (within 4 minutes) got onto our next plane which in turn sat on the runway for two hours. Instead of arriving at 2AM, me and my family arrived at 3AM. In the grand scheme of things not so bad.

Admittedly the absolutely worst stories I have ever heard involve American Airlines and their Miami hub without fail.

[Lucky Luciano]

1. My friend has a much worse story...

He was flying a cargo plane in South America in the jungles of Brazil. The trouble in some poor countries is always corruption and bribery...this happens a lot with the fuel suppliers that sometimes unethically sell off some of their fuel before making their delivery and then replacing the fuel with water....the bad fuel my friend got in his plane caused him to crash killing his friend. My friend survived, but it was a really bad experience obviously. It was three days before he was rescued too.

[SoCalDem]

2. I have had TWO..

#1.. we (Mother,brother, aged 3, and me)...were flying MATS on a C-47 from Panama to Kansas City..Over the gulf, we had engine trouble, and oil was spewing from one of the engines..Totally coated the windows.. We were flying low, preparing to ditch.. We had our mildewy old mae West jackets on, and were all huddled on the floor of the plane with the rafts.... The noise was deafening, and the poor old plane was shaking like an unbalanced washing machine...

We made it to Houston...and then caught a hop to Charleston, and then 2 days later to Kansas City.. I was 12..

#2.. I took a plane from South Bend , Indiana to Indianapolis..a puddle-jumper (16 passenger,IIRC).. We took off in a blinding rainstorm, and about 15 minutes into the flight, we were hit by lightning, and all the lights and A/C went off..the plane dropped like a rock at first, and then we "recovered".... It was hot, stuffy,pitch black inside and we were all scared to death..

Indianapolis became my "favorite" place on earth, when one of the pilots poked his head from behind the curtain to the cockpit, and said.. "Hang on, folks, we're almost there.. People cheered when we landed..

:)..and I still take planes.. The flight to Tahiti was waaaay too long, but Tahiti was worth it :)

[Dookus]

3. Once..

I was on a plane... and all these Syrian musicians used the bathroom. I was scared.

Seriously, though, I've flown all over the world and don't really have any bad experiences to relate. The closest was being in Seattle at Christmas and an ice storm hit and I was stuck in the airport for 48 hours. I came THIS close to becoming a Hare Krishna cuz they were the only happy people I'd seen in two days.

[librechik]

4. both my bad experiences were in smaller planes in Central/SA

The first was flying into La Paz Bolivia during a thunderstorm. It was very bumpy, lightining was going off, things were flying around and all the passengers were praying fervently and kissing crosses and crying.
Then we broke out, the clouds cleared, and Lake Titicaca apeared below us. Beauty! (gulp)

The other experience was just weird. We decided to fly to Tikal instead of bus it, which is only a few hundred miles from Guatemala City. For some reason the plane landed halfway there, in the middle of the jungle on a dirt strip! The crew made all the passengers get out of the plane. They said they had to bring a different plane to continue the trip and then they flew off!

. So we all waited in the jungle on the airstrip and pretty soon some jungle people showed up. They acted like they didn't see too many tourists around there.

Eventually (3 hrs!) a "different" plane showed up and we continued our trip to Tikal without incident.

Now what do you suppose was happening there? This was back in the mid 70s.

[Lucky Luciano]

7. On the Tikal trip,

were you worried about your possessions that were still on the plane?? Did they steal a lot of stuff or what?

[librechik]

8. I was traveling with only a carryon

and I have a vague memory of some luggage lying around, but not sure. We were lucky, we only got robbed once, in Sucre Blivia where a young boy stole my down jacket. It was so pathetic--they are desperately poor there.

[Lucky Luciano]

12. I was in Ecuador and

saw a kid attempt to break into my rental SUV - it had our bags in it and I was at the restaurant right next to the car with the car in plain sight from inside the restaurant. He walked up to the car and looked in it and quickly around and then pulled out a screwdriver to pry the back. Then he looked around again and he saw me smiling at him and waving my index finger at him the way an adult does to a kid that is doing wrong. He smiled back because he was so busted and he knew I was not going to hurt him (locals might kick the crap out of him/kill him) and he ran off. My girlfriend at the time always gave me shit for being toooo cautious about thieves, but I am glad I was always sharply observant. She almost got ripped off changing money and I fixed that too...the funny thing is that she was the one who spoke Spanish and her mom was from Ecuador!

[Pithlet]

5. I was on a small commuter jet

And we waited on the tarmac for an hour while they fixed the plane's bathroom. It smelled so bad that it was hard to breath, and I can't believe they wouldn't let us off the plane. Compared to the other stories in this thread, it's not so bad.

[yvr girl]

6. Two Stories

Commercial Aviation

I was on a flight from Puerto Vallarta to San Francisco on a Mexican airline (Mexicalli I think). The flight was a milk-run - two stops prior to our final destination. The first landing was so hard that all the overhead compartments opened up and the oxygen masks came down. We really slammed into the runway. The next landing was better. No masks, but still overhead compartments. By the time we got to San Francisco, the pilot was getting into the grove. It was pretty much a normal landing. Everyone applauded.

Private Aviation

When I was taking my flying lessons, my instructor had me fly low over an ice field on top of a mountain (about 20-30 feet). I don't know if he was trying to scare the &^%&$& out of me or if he was not a good mountain flyer but... there are these things called 'Mountain Waves' that can make for an exciting flight. Basically, air currents rush up one side of the mountain, and down the other. When you fly to close to the mountain, you can get caught in the current. We did. It was like some giant grabbed our plane and slam-dunked it down the far side of the mountain. The controls were ripped out of my hands. Unsecured items were bouncing around the cabin. Our rate of descent was off the scale. The plane shuddered and the ground began to loom large. After what seemed like a long time, but was most likely a minute or so, we were able to get far enough away from the mountain to get out of the wave. I think my heart-rate was elevated for the rest of the flight.

[coyote]

9. Boeing 777 from London to Boston on American

Took off from London Heathrow and were making our ascent to 30,000 feet. Then I looked out at the wing and saw all the flaps go up. I thought, "well that´s a strange thing to do when we should be climbing". Two minutes later, the oxygen masks drop. The plane was dead silent for 2 minutes....people were looking at one another as if asking "is this some kind of joke?". Everyone were looking at the flight attendants for some kind of response to this...then finally someone told us to place the oxygen masks on our face.

After reaching 10,000 feet, we were told we could take the masks off. However, people were freaking out because it smelled like there was a fire on the plane. Apparently, when the oxygen tanks get going, the chemical reaction creates a terrible smell (so I was told).

After dropping our fuel somewhere over England and making our emergency landing in Heathrow to be greeted by fire trucks....we were told the problem was a pressurization release valve. Basically, the plane was blowing up like a balloon and therefore the pilot had to make a quick descent.

There were lots of people crying after that plane landed and you could see that the flight attendants were scared shitless.

I talked to one of the flight attendants and she said that was the first time in 10 years on the job that happened to her. Quite a rare even I guess.

[Rhiannon12866]

10. Weird! I just posted this! I hate to fly.

My worst flight was from NYC to Helsinki, the capital of Finland. I had been working long hours, so I could take time off, so was overtired, plus I had both strong coffee and a glass of wine on this flight, both mistakes. My heart began racing and I got really scared. I told the stewardess that I was afraid I was having a heart attack. She reassured me that I wasn't (I was only about 27), but it only got worse. I just wanted to get off ASAP, but I was told that there were six hours left in the flight! She finally put me in a seat, with a curtain, in the front of the plane, and sat with me and talked to me for the rest of the flight, except when she had to serve breakfast. Then, the purser came and sat with me and gave me oxygen. They were both very kind and suggested that I just remain in Finland, LOL! My regret was that I was traveling with my grandmother and she wondered what happened to me, but I was in a real panic and didn't think to tell her where I was. I did make it home. After this, I highly recommend Finnair as an airline. They really looked after me.:-)

[Lucky Luciano]

13. So, was the flight attendant hot or what?

You should work that angle if that is the case!

[Rhiannon12866]

14. She was nice enough looking, I guess

There was a bit of confusion, since most everyone on that flight was either American or Finnish. Because of my looks, they, at first, assumed I was Finnish, so spoke to me in that language, which I don't speak.:shrug:

The flight attendant was from Lapland, in Finland, and told me all about her life there and background. In six hours, we had enough time to talk, but I think she was trying to distract me from thinking about myself and my anxiety. But if you're asking if I was interested in her, the answer is no, LOL! You may have been, however!:-)

[JM]

11. One horrid, one funny

Horrid:

I had to fly to Chicago, and decided on Vanguard to Midway. Big mistake. We left late and in a snow storm. We had to taxi so long I thought we decided just to take the highways instead of flying. We finally pulled into the deicing station nearly an hour after leaving the gate.

I was seated in around row 10. As the deicing boom approached the front of the plane, I heard this splashing sound, looked up, and saw the guy in the first row jump up and start brushing himself like he got splashed. I though the flight attendants spilled coffee on him.

Shortly after we were done deicing, the plane pulled to a stop in the middle of nowhere, and the next thing we know, there is a mechanic racing down the aisle to the front of the plane. He had to check the door seal. They thought deicing fluid had made it through the door. It was determined the snow that was falling got inside the seal while we were at the gate, had melted, and been pushed into the cabin by the pressure of the deicer.

We dropped him off, and by now I had been sitting for well over an hour. As I shifted in my seat, I realized the bolts that were holding my seat to the floor were loose. Like 1/8" loose. There was a ton of play in this seat.

On the flight back, they had to move people around since they had between 5 and 10 seats that were unusable. The seat trays wouldn't stay up.

If they can't handle the basic maintenance, what is happening with things like engines and flight controls???

Funny:

I had to fly to San Diego. I arrived at the gate with plenty of time, and the gate was absolutely jammed. The gate attendant made her preboarding announcement. I looked around, and I was the only one left at the gate. Everyone else had preboarded. It was a flight to an AARP cruise.

The gate attendant laughed when she looked up and saw only me and announced general boarding. It took about 15 minutes to get to my seat trying to get past the canes, crutches, walkers, etc.

JM