Only real unpleasantness I’ve had was after landing when there was a significant lack of communication between the crew & airport personnel regarding which baggage claim was for which flight.
Not a ‘bad flight’ story but some anecdotal ‘ridiculous to the sublime’ stuff:
On a mid 80’s flight on VIASA from Miami to Caracas I was surprised to see we were boarding what appeared to be a clapped out 707 (I now think it was probably a DC-8). The passengers (from language cues) were primarily South American and I was charmed/alarmed when after take-off most of the passengers broke out into applause. Just glad to be on their way, I guessed. After an uneventful flight we landed in Caracas and just after touch-down the majority of the passengers burst out with what I can only describe as a ‘Futbol Fight Song’ sort of thing with enthusiastic fist pumps and clapping. Wow!? - for the pilot, because we survived? - or just glad to be home again?
The odd got odder after deplaning. about 30 of us were transferring to a VARIG flight continuing on Rio de Janiero. With a long line at the counter the first person presented their ticket (standard IATA paper coupon-style of the period). The counter person looked at the ticket, thumbed through the pages, looked on the back and then called over two other employees who passed it back and forth with head-scratching and conversation for several minutes before tearing out the coupon and motioning the passenger toward the gate. Okay, must have been a minor glitch - here we go now. Not so fast. The second person in line presented their ticket and we went through the same 5 minutes of puzzled examination of the ticket as if it was an artifact left behind by an ancient civilization. This same inexplicable process was repeated several more times (we’ve processed 4 passengers in close to 30 minutes by now) when the next passenger in line used their mad skills of language and persuasion (arm-waving and gesturing) to convince the VARIG people that "Yes, these are airline tickets, you’ve seen tickets before? We’re all going to Rio - you know, that big place in Brazil, on an airplane, your airplane, very soon, claro?!
Somehow after that things went more smoothly.
On the sublime side, on a Qantas flight from London to Dhahran the flight steward, easily recognizing several of us as obvious ‘oil-field trash’ heading into the non-alcoholic KSA for contract work, came by and slipped full .75 liter bottles of wine into our seat pockets with “Get these down yer necks, lads - there’s more when you’re finished” Ta, mate, from a grateful Yank!
I was coming in for a landing (I can’t recall the airport, but mostly likely, Newark). It was very cloudy, a lot of turbulence, and I’m looking out the window and all I see are clouds. Suddenly, we are through the clouds, and I can see the ground, and apparently we were much, much lower than the pilot thought we were, because there was a sudden lurch and then we were accelerating upwards at quite a sharp angle… I suspect we were about to crash, but the pilot made a last-minute ‘correction’.
I just missed this one. My work partner and I were heading back from San Francisco thru Atlanta to Huntsville, AL back in the early 90s. They overbooked planes substantially then and unless pressed for time; I’d always take a cash voucher or free ticket, guaranteed seat on the next flight, and wait a few hours. Bud took the regular flight and had a great view of portions of the port engine exiting the aircraft in pieces 30 seconds after lift off. Pilots got it stabilized and they spent the next couple of hours in a scenic ride around the bay area. Must have been no fire or emergency in a relative sense. The cruising at low altitude was to burn or dump fuel (it was a 757 or 767 - not sure if those models can dump) for landing weight purposes. Bud and more than a few others got gastric distress or soiled. A fine stench he described it. Meanwhile, I was boarded and arrived several hours before him.
Going to a conference in Carlsbad, NM, I chose to fly to Roswell and drive from there to avoid (I thought) going on a very small plane. Got one anyway on the leg from Amarillo (? I think) to Roswell. We had flown for a while when it felt like the plane was making an approach to landing. Then suddenly it began climbing full power like the proverbial bat out of Hell - and levelled out, made no turns and continued on for another half hour or so. :eek:
I have no idea what actually happened - mistaken near touch-and-go at the wrong airport? Pilot and co-pilot synchronizing their naps? Scary enough, but not in the league of some of these other stories.
I dunno. If purplehearingaid gets that feeling every time, confirmation bias would mean it would be remembered the one time it was right.
Not as bad as some recounted above.
About 15 years ago was flying from Detroit to Minneapolis. Stewardess had the carts out serving drinks and peanuts. The pilot made some brief announcement (I don’t recall what he said - it was mostly some technical language probably designed not to scare the shit of of the passengers) then the stewardesses immediately locked the wheels on the carts, I think they attached some kind of strap to either the seat backs or arms and then went immediately to their jump seats and strapped in. I was in a bulkhead seat, so there was a jump seat directly in front of me.
Almost as soon as the stewardesses strapped in, there was a huge bump and rapid drop. Not a little drop, a big roller coaster, stomach in your mouth drop. The stewardess across from me was white-knuckling the arm rests and look kind of sickly for a minute.
Then there was a minute or two of pretty rough turbulence, which settled down after maybe 3-4 minutes. Then the pilot made another announcement and the stewardesses went back to serving drinks.
I was flying a lot back then, never experienced anything like that. No idea what actually happened except for a real rough ride.
My life has been tamer and more boring than most, so it’s no surprise I’ve already posted the only close-call I’ve been in (“Cessna so-and-so, you have a wide-body aircraft at 12 o’clock.”)
I used to have no trouble sleeping on airplanes, but these days turbulence makes me nervous.
I do remember one trip with severe sinusitis and pressure building in my sinuses where I had the urge to summon stewardess: “Ma’am, my head is about to explode sending blood everywhere. Please take measures so the other passengers don’t get alarmed.”
Remember Britt Airlines?
Sadly, I do, on a flight into Coles County Airport. Mattoon, Illinois. Flatland, in other words. About a hundred miles before arrival, it starts to get a wee bit bumpy. I get the seat belt snugged up, and all of a sudden, the curtains to the cockpits part, I can see the altimeter needle spinning, and we hit something even more turbulent with a BANG! The one flight attendant vomits. The pilots look a little distressed, and closed go the magic curtains.
Never so glad to see the soil of Central Illinois, and never knew what exactly happened.
Nothing like many of the horrors here, but my 2 cents worth…
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Flying into Denver circa Feb 1995. It was a night arrival. Nothing too eventful up until we are on approach for landing, and in the last few seconds of approach, the plane makes a hard roll of what felt like 40 degrees, leveled out, and touched down. The lady next to me grabbed my arm while I clenched the armrest. We all had some eye-popping looks.
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My story recounted here: AMERICAN AIRLINES sucks big green donkey dicks! The short version: flying AA from Columbus Ohio to DFW, plane change to fly on to Houston Hobby. Weather problems in Dallas area caused some troubles, but not the real issues. First the plane departing Columbus was delayed for “maintenance log issues”, departed 2 hours late. Then at DFW, we were bounced between 3 different gates for 3 different airplanes all having “maintenance issues”, dragging me out for 3 hours before I gave up and had my parents pick me up for the night. AA couldn’t guarantee me a flight back to my airport on another airline - damned if I wanted to fly AA when they couldn’t get 3 airplanes working. I sucked up the cost and flew Southwest from Love Field. Turns out it was probably union negotiating tactics as part of AA’s merger talks. Apparently it was an ongoing thing to make Sundays hell. One lady I talked to was a regular commuter and said those delays were typical.
Heh. Bloomington Illinois in the late 70’s. Coming in on a ~20 seat twin. Descending towards the ‘airport’ and hit a monster rainstorm. Bottom drops out and the stall buzzer goes on. Even in my late teens, I knew what that must be (my dad was in ground school at the time and we talked about such things).
Shit, close to the ground in a stall in a rain storm. Made it of course.
Nature Air about 4 years ago. Another small plane. My Wife does not like to fly, let alone small planes. Before take off, they rubber banded a GPS unit to the pilots control wheel. Apparently the nav was out or something. Got diverted in the air, because of weather, but then weather cleared we went to our destination. Or so was said.
From Belize city to Ambergris Caye. Cessna Caravan. A short flight. About 15 minutes. Not enough room, so I was put in the co-pilots seat. Wife was in the back. Um OK. Cool. Don’t touch anything senor, where my instructions.
Landing on the Caye, I could see the runway. Ummmm… Wow, we seem way way too high, he’s gonna touch down half way down the runway!. Ummmm… Well I couldn’t see the extra paved run out at the end of the runway. Didn’t look like runway to me.
You had me worried for a moment. 
Most annoying flight…going Houston to Singapore. Continental to LAX, then JAL the rest of the way. On the leg from Honolulu to Tokyo, a woman got on and immediately freaked out when the plane took off. Screaming to Jeebuz at the top of her lungs to hold the plane in his hands and not let it crash into the ocean…over and over. Finally somebody slipped her a mickey and she passed out for the duration. Woke up long enough to pray us into Narita Airport.
But the worst, the absolute worst of all times: Grand Canyon Airlines. We took the tour on the little prop plane. Two seats down one side of the aisle, one seat down the other. Great big windows to take pictures out of. The plane takes off, gets about 50 off the ground and just flies out over the edge of the canyon, right past Snoopy Rock. Which is about as far as I lasted. The turbulence over the canyon is astounding and I wound up filling three barf bags and was working on a 4th, trying to get my toenails to come up. I have never in my life been so miserable. All I could think was “please crash the goddam thing and get me down from here!” I will never fly another puddle-jumper like that ever again in my life.
The thing with little planes is you can really feel them rattle and creak and vibrate, even on a relatively smooth flight. That does not inspire confidence. Hit any turbulence, and those babies really can dance around.
Rigidity is comforting - stability is important.
When I was a kid, I flew with my mom and little sister from Misawa AB Japan , in the northern part of Honshu, to Tachikawa Air Field on the outskirts of Tokyo. This would have been around 74. there was a hellacious snowstorm going on and the turbulence was terrible.
The pilot started his descent, and at about 100 feet the ATC called him off. He yanked on the stick and sent us from a regular descent into a really steep climb to miss whatever was in our war. I threw up four or five times in those few minutes. Only time I’ve ever been any kind of airsick.
Proud to say, I never lost the gob stopper that was in my mouth at the time!
It was I think 2013 and we had a flight from Houston going to Bogota Colombia. We missed our first flight because of not being able to hear the intercom. The people next to us were louder than it was. The other reason was because I thought the departure time was at a different time. We were able to get on to a later flight and before leaving the ground there was a storm that had just went through. As I always try and make sure to do before leaving, I say a prayer before we take off.
So, after takeoff and while in the air (I believe it was about 30 minutes to maybe an hour in the air give or take), the plane suddenly drops. When I say the plane dropped, I mean it dropped so hard and fast that everything in my shirt pocket came out at a rocket speed as well as almost all of the other loose objects that were on board hitting the roof making a loud slapping noise. The force was so hard I thought those items which were thrusted like projectiles would have went straight through the top of the plane.
During this time I am not sure how long it lasted, but most everyone on the plane were screaming and crying and as for me personally I was praying and speaking in tongues; I was thinking for sure we were going to crash. After this happened I quickly braced myself and was trying to help out my wife. We also had two children on board and one of them was a lap infant and thankfully my wife had her in a maya carry sling so she was safe. The children’s eyes just got really big and surprisingly didn’t make a whimper. After all this there was a mess everywhere as well as in the restroom. Needless to say we had to go back to Houston and also didn’t hear hardly a peep from the pilot. I later heard after getting off the plane that the pilot which was an older pilot said that he had never experienced anything like that in all of his flying.
Miraculously there were no injuries on the whole plane and no damage to the plane. Also no one was up out of their seat at the time. With this being said this came out of no where without warning. And for me being a sign from the Lord Jesus, the only thing I noticed to still be in the same place where I placed it was my Bible which never left its place. Everything else however was strewn all over the plane. I made it a point since I was spared personally to let everyone on that flight know the reason why we were all safe was because the Lord spared us everyone.
I couldn’t believe that there were other people that just quickly shot to another flight. My family and I went to stay in a room as we gathered ourselves and as I prayed to make sure what, if any flight we were to board. That experience literally shook me to the point of totally examining my whole being.
I’ve got several hundred flights under my belt, and have never had any quite as terrorizing as many of the above. Oh, the turbulence and the old aircraft and the passenger from Hell and the aborted landings…if you fly a lot, you’ll eventually encounter those. But some of you folks have really had the bad ones.
My worst was in 1983, I had finished a class and was taking a flight from Newport News to Baltimore and back to Indianapolis. Was on a 2-engine Beechcraft (IIRC) with two other passengers and in the middle of a thunderstorm. Never ever have I been bounced around the sky as much as that flight (not even over the Grand Canyon) and never have I been happier to see the runway lights (I could see right past the pilots and out the front window) at Baltimore.
In 2012 I had to fly to Elmira, NY. Took a small commuter jet from Philadelphia, and Elmira has an 8,000 ft runway, so no problem, right? Damn pilot glided over half the runway before he touched down, I was reading the numbers for the taxiways as we touched…4…3…2…as we frantically braked. If that runway was 8,000 feet, we used 7,990 of them. I was positive we were going to end up off the runway.
Like I said, mild compared to most of the stories here.
We were in a charter plane with 150 people or so trying to land in a small airport in the fog. we tried once or twice, and the pilot pulled up. He announced we would go to a large airport about 65 miles away instead, and then said, “We are going to try this one more time,” and we ended up very close to the fence, but down and safe. That’s about the worst I’ve experienced, but it was the people getting upset as we descended in the fog that made it scarier.
I took my husband to the airport to catch one of those little eight or ten seaters once, and it was snowy and icy. they deiced the plane, it taxied out, and came back. They deiced it again, it taxied out, then came back. It was the only plane leaving, so it wasnt as if it was icing up while waiting for other planes to take off, it was just that nasty out.
After the third time they had the passengers get out and go back into the terminal while they deiced it more thoroughly. I told my husband I didn’t want him to get back on, so we left. I am not sure if it took off later or if they cancelled the flight.
Pretty tame as it goes, thank goodness.
I was on this flight. In short, guy freaked out halfway through the flight, walking up the aisles, “blessing” everyone, telling people he was Jesus and that he needed to go into the cockpit to bless the pilots or else the plane was going to crash. The flight attendants attempted to calm him down and get him back in his seat, but he was having none of it. Led to a struggle, he flung one of the attendants across some seats, and he had to be restrained. Lots of chaos, screaming and crying from passengers. Pretty scary stuff.
Wow! Did you have to get out of your seat? Were you in the group that subdued him?