I do a fair amount of travel…and I must say this was the worse experience I have ever had on a plane. On our way home from Phoenix we were sitting on the tarmack waiting to take off when we heard a loud click, click, click, click…BOOM… :eek:
What the hell was that?!
We immediately started to turn around and head back to the gate. Apparently the starter on the right engine blew and we needed another one…so two hours later -and we were not allowed off the plane - the problem was fixed, we had a new starter and we were off. Ok cool. No big deal. We were on our way home to CT.
We had a layover in Atlanta. We were informed midflight the conditions in Atlanta were a 500 ft ceiling and foggy with some light drizzle.
Great!
So we are on our final approach to Atlanta I feel the landing gear come down, those decending noises start…and all of a sudden 300 ft above the ground…I can see the parking lot to the airport… Then suddenly, the plane lurches forward, and the plane’s nose rises and we go nearly vertical - up, up and away…
Mind you there was a 500ft ceiling…and foggy…I can’t see anything, I think we are crashing, people are gasping, and the pilot finally gets on the com and say’s: Folks calm down…we have just experienced a missed approach. The tower informed us that there was a private cesna in our path of landing who was not moving on his approach, and we were in their flight path.
:eek:
So, that’s my story. And after we landed and I changed my boxer-briefs and nursed a Long Island Iced Tea with my wife…I was very reluctant to get on our connecting flight.
I’m typing this, so we obviously lived…but it was still very nerve wracking.
Anyone ever this happen to them>? Anything else that was similarly scary? Let’s hear it…
Missed approaches are not usually causes for alarm, although I realize anything out of the ordinary on a flight makes passengers nervous.
When initiated in a timely manner, it’s a normal procedure. Indeed, they are required under some circumstances. Instrument approaches all contain provision for missed approaches, and describe exactly what the pilot must do.
The most likely causes are weather, and traffic. The latter scenario, as described in the OP, can be more dire if the situation develops without much warning. But again, that’s not usually the case.
I’ve initiated required missed approaches because of cloud ceilings below minimums. And I’ve had to go missed a few times because the winds were gusty and I was unable to make the approach stable enough. Second try, no problem.
The few times I was actually scared was because of wildlife. Going into small fields with students I’ve had deer and turkeys trot out on the runway. Not much of a problem at the big airports though.
I can’t say I’ve experienced anything in a flight that really scared me but I got to spend a lot of time in light aircraft when I was a teenager so I may be a little more desensitized. I don’t know if a missed approach would have bothered me as much because it mightr have felt like a touch and go.
I think the most violent maneuver I ever experienced was a carrier landing in a C-2 Greyhound on the Constellation. The passenger seats are backwards and there isn’t much visibility to see the approach anyway. The loadmaster did a countdown to hitting the deck and even with as many carrier landings as I had watched I wasn’t prepared for the force. The decelleration is so severe it fools your middle ear into thinking that “up” is 90º from reality. Sitting backwards up became the tail of the airplane for about half a second. The sound of the impact, the noise from the arresting gear mechanism in the ship and the engines roaring at military power add to the E-ticket* experience.
*For those under 30 yearss old does not refer to airfare purchased online.
You mean the proverbial “dog on the runway” isn’t always a joke?
Happened once to me, at O’Hare; pilot said the previous plane hadn’t cleared the runway in time. Not a problem, but it took an extra 15 minutes to go to what must have been Wisconsin and come back around.
The closest I’ve come to a missed takeoff came when the pilot taxied out to the runway, kept going, came around back to the gate and told us we needed more fuel. Some shaggy-dog story ensued about a clearance change after leaving the gate causing a longer flight time.
I fly a lot for business and have had three life threatening “incidents”, one of which was a fast pull up and turn on approach to Lambert in St. Louis because another plane was in the runway. The plane was an old MD80/DC9 that groaned a LOT on the turn, probably pulling more g’s than it ever had before.
The second incident was taking off from Lambert in a 757, rolling down the runway and one of engines cut out after several hundred feet. Yikes! I’m glad we build 9,000 foot runways.
The third was flying into Little Rock. A wicked spring thunderstorm was blowing through and instead of going around and waiting 20 minutes for the thing to blow over, we head straight into the damn thing on our final approach! :eek: I’m sure lighnting hit the plane, we bounced around like a cork in a hurricane, unsecured items becoming flying objects, overhead bins popping open, the whole nine yards. I was sure my wife was about to collect on the life insurance and marry the pool boy.
Never had two incidents on the same flight Phlosphr . That would really increase my scotch consumption.
I’ve “gone around” plenty of times, though granted, they were all in much smaller planes and there were no passengers onboard. You guys are acting like a “missed approach” means impending disaster, when most of the time it’s more likely averting disaster. My flight instructors always told me that it was better to go around if anything looks wrong on the approach than to try to salvage a landing out of a bad approach.
Though I know to Philosphr it must have seemed like lightning was striking twice in the same place, nothing he said seemed out of order to me.
It was 12/1/74 landing at National Airport in Washington, DC. We were coming in from Boston, probably on Eastern Airlines. Weather was terrible. The pilot tried three times and had to abort due to high cross winds each time. All three were frightening – people all over the plane were really glad there were plenty of air sickness bags. Pilot came on the PA and said “Folks, we’re gonna try one more time. If we can’t do it, we’ll head over to Dulles*” I am not sure we were ever instructed to assume crash positions, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we had been.
We land, there is a prolonged round of applause and we go about our business. Future return trips from Beantown in bad weather are frequently on the train!
That day a plane crashed going into Dulles. The NTSB report indicates that the crew lowered altitude too soon, but I tell ya, that weather was absolutely terrible. http://aviation-safety.net/database/1974/741201-0.htm
Very scary.
*In case you don’t know, [Reagan] National Airport is right on the Potomac River, Dulles is quite a bit away from any water.
I think I might have witnessed a missed approach while I was driving into New Orleans on Sunday afternoon. Driving in from the west on Interstate 10 takes you right along the main landing path for New Orleans International Airport. You’ll see planes coming in from the east to your right as you drive in. This time I noticed a jet veering off to the north, crossing the interstate and making a long slow circle to the west. It was as though it was coming in on final approach and had to loop around and try it again.
Oh yes. I have been petrified of flying ever since which really stinks because at the time I was toying with the idea of getting my pilot license.
It happened on landing at the Tahiti airport. The landing strip is right next to the lagoon. We were inches away from ending up like this . This was US Air’s first flight to the islands as they bought the route. Apparently the pilot misjudged the length of the runway. Scared me to death!
I saw one the other week. Qantas 737 approaching Sydney’s Kingsford-Smith Airport on the cross runway (the shortest) coming in gracefully over the main street in the suburb of Mascot where I was, which is close to the end of the runway, at about five hundred feet. Gear down of course, normal attitude. Next thing a dull roar and whooska! Off in a really steep climb and outta there, banking sharpish towards the south and out over Botany Bay. I don’t know what happened, but all I can remember thinking was “Damn, I’d like to have been on that plane. It looked like fun”.
It’s true, I’ve always wanted to experience a last minute go around like that. They say it’s the only time passengers normally feel anything like the max power those aircraft ar capable of.
I’ve had at least three missed approaches and one aborted takeoff.
Missed approach 1: Flying into Atlanta, probably about 500 feet up, pilot pulled out of our descent and we circled back around for another try. He never explained why. This was in mediocre (but not horrible) weather, for what it’s worth.
Missed approach 2: Flying in from Toronto to CVG on a Canadair jet. A couple hundred feet above the runway we pulled up and left very abruptly. The pilot explained that another plane was using our runway. How rude of them!
Missed approach 3: Flying from Atlanta to Tampa on Song this summer we were racing a storm front in. Into our final approach we climbed out of it. The plane that was landing just before us had reported wind sheer conditions. So we got to circle and fly through the storm for about 60-90 minutes. Our pilot had pulled out of our hold pattern to fly to Orlando to land (and refuel?) when we turned back around for Tampa. Between takeoff and landing delays the flight was four hours late. Then we sat on the tarmac for another 45 minutes waiting for lightning in the bay to clear so we could get guided into the gate and unloaded. Thankfully Song has onboard music trivia contests, so I at least had something to do.
Aborted Landing: Flying out of Buenos Aires on a United(?) 747 we were going just about full throttle down the runway when they hit the brakes, turned the plane around and headed back to the gate. According to the pilot a warning light had come on during our takeoff and they didn’t want to take any chances. He later told us it was just a problem with the warning light. Maybe.
Bonus Hairy Experience, neither takeoff nor landing: In flight, halfway between Cincinnati and Miami our plane suddenly went into a very steep dive. It got extremely quiet in the cabin. Lots of beads of sweat and white knuckles. After what seemed like a couple of minutes we leveled out. We had been flying at about 35,000 feet when our cabin pressurization equipment gave out. Our pilot said that the redundant unit was also out, prior to the flight, but that two units never fail, so they went ahead with the flight anyway. So he had to get us down below 10,000 feet for the rest of the flight. This was from about Macon to Miami. During the summer. With lots of summer storm clouds to fly through. Fairly bumpy. The rest of the flight no one was talking. We were probably about 200 miles north of Miami when BAM we hit one big bump of turbulence. There were a few faint screams and lots of sobbing and praying. But the rest of the flight was fairly uneventful.
A friend of mine described a scary incident that happened to him - and the scariest part was that it was no “incident” at all - just normal flying. He said that on a flight from Sydney to South America, they stopped at Easter Island to refuel. Apparently Aerolineas Argentinas is - or was - the only airline willing to land a 747 at Easter Island, because of the length of the runway.
He said the pilot applied huge power, flipped the brakes off and they shot down the runway. Then he said the nose of the plane lifted, then he felt the main gear leave the ground, then there was ocean. No margin.
Ditto. We were down to about 100’ when the pilot went full power, 45 degree climb, full right rudder. I was in a window seat and saw the other plane on our runway, rolling in the opposite direction. The pilot came on and explained the situation. I was OK with the whole thing until we disembarked. Both pilots were visibly shaken and the post flight “buh bye’s” were quite strained.
There’s a reason Lambert usually claims the “most dangerous airport in the US” designation.
I fly a lot commercially. We were on final approach into Charlotte’s Douglas Airport when the pilot applied power and the plane rose back up into the sky. The captain explained that there was traffic on the runway and that we would go around again. Unevenful landing after that.
The scariest experience that I had was flying on a commutor prop plane into Atlanta. Gorgeous day, nice weather, smooth flight. We were in the landing pattern. Without any warning it was if the floor had dropped out from under us. This was much more severe than an air pocket. The pilot never offered an explanation. In fact he didn’t open the cabin door after we stopped at the gate. My guess is that he got a TCAS* warning and did an evasive maneuver to avoid a possible collision.
*TCAS - Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System
Don’t let that stop you. You’d be surprised how many people begin taking flight lessons because they have some sort of fear of flying.
One of my current students fits this bill. I would say he enjoyed absolutely NOTHING about the experience for the first 6-8 hours he spent with me in the airplane. That time was spent just dealing with his anxieties. He’s progressed very well - soloed this past summer, and he’s now doing his navigation flights. I give him a lot of credit for facing a major fear.
End of hijack. Oops, I probably shouldn’t use that word in an aviation thread…
chuckle at the hijack reference. I’ll tell you though Mach Tuck my fear is huge! I flew one more time after that and I swear I thought I would have a melt down. The fact that my young children were with me at the time was what kept me from bugging out.
My dad and mom are/were pilots (both fixed wing and heli). I grew up around planes. I’m afraid and ashamed of the fact that my flying days are over.
