quote:

Originally posted by kkina:

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Yarchin:

3. Flying from Dallas to LGA, halfway down the runway during take off we heard a loud pop. The front wheel had just started to come off the runway. The pilot reversed the engines and slammed hard on the brakes. A luggage door popped open.

Wow. That pilot made a choice well outside established procedures. Except in exceedingly rare circumstances (of which a door warning is not generally one), even before the nose comes off the ground, you hit a certain speed and are committed to fly. I'm curious when this happened and what airplane it was on. Professional curiosity and all.

Wow. That means he was well past V1 and had just hit Vr. In other words he's thinking, "Well, I'd rather crash on the ground than drop from the sky." If by hook or crook he keeps it on the runway, all the better.

We had to de-board and were booked on other flights. They towed that one away.

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
A round trip from BWI to Phoenix on a packed Southwest flight. I now know how a sardine feels when stuffed into a small can.

Waiting to board a Cessna 172 for my first sky dive and they first had to fix the plane so it would fly.

Close to the same story! People ask me why I wanted to jump out of a perfectly airplane, I tell them there was no perfectly good airplane involved.

quote:

Originally posted by armedmd:
Arrived the next morning. I told my boss about the incident and he looks at me says “dumbass, don ever raise your hand for that kind of shit”. I didn’t say anything but that really disappointed me because he’s a very good physician but I know he’s serious that he wouldn’t raise his hand.

Sounds like your boss is just in it for the $$$.

I know you don’t need me to tell you but you did the right thing, Dr. Good on you.

Stories like this is why I take a couple of Nyquils before boarding so I'm knocked out for my flights. I don't hate flying but I do hate the process. I much prefer to drive. If it's a place I can drive to within 18-20 hours, I'm driving. 20 hours of driving in a day is about my max.

Late 90s was riding front seat in a helicopter over a very remote area of Malaysian Borneo. Pilot really didnt know any english, maybe a few words at best. Ride became fairly bumpy and looking down at the thick canopy knew that if we went down 1) we would probably get hung up in the trees, 2) we most likely wouldn't be found if we went down. So a minute or so later, the pilot came on the intercom and all he said was, "uh oh". Both the other passenger and I were pretty much having a WTF moment becasue we tried to ask him what he meant, but since he couldnt speak english and we didnt speak malay we were left for a few minutes highly concerned that we were going down.

Knock on wood - nothing major. Makes me think of Focker in Meet the Parents, and the endless keyboard check-in, the lady with the hair chopsticks overhead compartment plane ejection, homeland security bomb interrogation.

I’m old enough to remember when there was a smoking and a non-smoking section. In short, everything was smoking. Those were long flights.

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:

quote:

Originally posted by armedmd:
Arrived the next morning. I told my boss about the incident and he looks at me says “dumbass, don ever raise your hand for that kind of shit”. I didn’t say anything but that really disappointed me because he’s a very good physician but I know he’s serious that he wouldn’t raise his hand.

Sounds like your boss is just in it for the $$$.

I know you don’t need me to tell you but you did the right thing, Dr. Good on you.

^^^^^^^^^
Absolutely. Someone that cares makes the best doctors too.

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:
I’m old enough to remember when there was a smoking and a non-smoking section. In short, everything was smoking. Those were long flights.

Like a "no peeing" section in a pool.

Easy answer for me. I broke my tibia and fibula and after my Dr. said he thought it was ok to go on a ski vacation with my family on my Christmas break from college I quickly proved him wrong as I re broke my tibia and fibula. We had traveled out there by Winnebago with another family so I had to fly home by myself which I had never done before. Finding your way through the Dallas airport by yourself in a wheelchair with a long cast stuck straight out was no fun at all but I made it to my connecting flight just in time.

Since it was a a re-break my lower leg swelled up like a balloon and the Dr. in Utah put an old school temporary heavy plaster cast that went above my knee. Being 6'4' and not being able to bend my knee because of the long cast the stewardess put me in the first row of what was coach at the time.

I was then able to have my straight leg be in the lane between coach and first class without having to block the isle. That stewardess was on the ball and even got her small suitcase and put it under the bottom of my cast so my foot was in the air keeping the cast from digging into the back of my leg and making my swollen and freshly broken leg throb just a little bit less.

The problem is just as I was starting to nod off from the exhausting trip she came back by with the cart and knocked the suitcase out from under my cast allowing the cast to slam to the floor sending a shockwave through my broken tibia and fibula that almost made me hop out of my seat. It was more painful than the second time I actually broke it.

I have 2 stories, this 1st one story is not a complaint, just an interesting observation. My 2nd story below is my worse experience.

In the summer of 1977 my brother in law wanted his Suburban moved from Durango Co to OKC.

He was an oil man, quite wealthy, and so I and my college buddy rode in his Lear Jet from OKC to Denver. I was 20 years old.

In Denver we got on a prop job plane, I think it might have been a DC3, not sure, and I can't recall the airline, and flew to Durango Co.

We'd fly a little while, then the Pilot would do a sort of touch and go at numerous little towns airports along the way. We'd land, sort of, and slow down, but not stop, and some crew member would open the door and toss out something, shut the door, the engines would rev up and we'd take off again.

I think this happened maybe 7 or 8 times before we finally got to land in Durango La Plata Airport. I got a chance to ask the crew member what he was doing and he replied "tossing out the mail" and "on the return trip we come to a quick stop, grab the mail and take off again on the way back to Denver".

OK here's my worst experience: I usually fly OKC to Palm Springs CA a couple of times a year. I always fly American, and the routing has been OKC-DFW-Palm Springs.

I think it was 4 years ago and we took off from DFW to PSP in a DC9. Shortly after we took off the Flight Attendant made an intercom announcement that BOTH rear bathrooms were out of order, not to be used, BECAUSE SOMEONE FLUSHED A DIAPER in one and that caused both rear toilets to be out of order.

We were told to use the ONE bathroom up front in First Class. Well, that's a problem, because with something like 150-ish people on board of an almost 3 hour flight, you're not allowed to stand around in the aisle, especially up front near the cockpit.

There were maybe 5 or 6 babies on board and everyone was pissed and trying to figure out which one was to blame for screwing up the rear toilets.

2 come to mind -

First was on an DL MD88 from ATL-PHL. While still at the gate and at least 15-20mins to push, some guy took a death shit in the rear lav and cheezed up the whole plane, and of course with my luck, I was in the last row next to the lavs. The only good thing about that flight was that my sister knew the flight crew and they gave me free beer. I really felt bad for them, as their jumpseats were back there.

Second was on a DL 757 from BOS-TPA. Turbulence pretty much the entire flight and it got the best of an older man a few rows back. I assumed that he was not able to get to the barf bag fast enough, puke was everywhere. it was quite ripe from NY area until TPA.

Just a couple:
1. Flying to Cincinnati (or Dayton) from Denver on Frontier, we have some type of problem and have to turn back and do an emergency landing back at Denver less than 10 minutes into flight. Emergency vehicles and lights everywhere along our runway. That was scary.
2. Flying with my kids (both are great flyers, at about 8 and 9 years old at the time). No complaints the whole flight, until my boy says his ear hurts after we land, and blood is running out of his ear. Immediate pediatrician visit when we lands confirms it is a burst eardrum, and he has said basically nothing. Trooper.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
Once, they ran out of Chateau Latour bordeaux and I had to settle for Chateau Margaux.

First world problems, eh?

quote:

Originally posted by 380Swift:

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
Once, they ran out of Chateau Latour bordeaux and I had to settle for Chateau Margaux.

First world problems, eh?

First class problems...

Been hesitant to weigh in this thread, don't think anything could compare to LimeCharlie taking fire in Viet Nam. That had to be a horrible situation to be in.

With that said, after a 20 year career in the Coast Guard flying Falcons for 13 of my last 17 years I had several flights that were petty uncomfortable for various reasons. Mostly it was flying around over the ocean in nasty weather looking for mariners in trouble, fishing in the wrong area or smuggling drugs.

My worst experience was 20 years ago this month. Deployed out of Mobile Al to Borinquen PR (BQN) via Gitmo (MUGM) on the 17th of Nov. Hurricane Lenny was approaching the east coast of PR and we were sent down there on short notice in advance of the storm to help out the BQN and Miami crews already down there.

Had an experienced E7 chief petty officer as the drop master and crew chief, a junior petty officer for the left observer and a fairly junior female avionicsman (AVI) on the radar and radios in the back.

Had a First Pilot (FP) who was left seat qualified and was hoping to get a lot of left seat time on our deployment. The winds were very strong and gusty at BQN, nearing our 30 knot crosswind limit. I explained to the FP that I would stay in the left seat and take most of the flying until the weather was a bit better. I told him that he could have every leg afterward for the rest of the deployment (turned out to be just a week long) when the weather wasn't at limits.

The next night we got launched out to the southeast end of the island in search of a sailboat in distress with a sole older man onboard. We were flying around in the dark without a very good weather radar trying to stay out of the worst of the thunderstorms and turbulence, probably 6500 to 7500 feet above the water (can't remember exactly). In and out of clouds and rain bands trying to pinpoint his position with our ADF tracking the signal from his ELT. After several passes at altitude and getting multiple swings of the ADF needle we were able to get a pretty good position for him.

Of course the Rescue Control Center (RCC) was wanting us to get an actual visual on the guy and put a Data Marker Bouy (DMB) on him as well in case his ELT battery died. I knew it couldn't be done in these conditions but the AVI was quite persistent that RCC wanted this done and they wouldn't release us to depart scene without us dropping a DMB on the guy.

Our Falcons were modified with a drop hatch and we could drop de-watering pumps or life rafts to boats or people in the water, as well as the DMB. Only problem was you needed to be depressurized, get down to 200 feet (100 feet for a DMB) and get a visual on the target in order to deliver it.

I decided we would at least try to get down to 600 feet (normal patrol altitude over the water during the day, this was night in the clouds, wind and rain) and see if we could get underneath the weather to get a visual on the sailboat.

We briefed it up and a were ready to give it a try, keeping in mind that in a hurricane the pressure is very low and we are only guessing on the altimeter setting to determine our altitude, and low pressure means you are lower than you think if you have the wrong setting in your pressure window for the altimeter. We had radar altimeters (RadAlt)as well, one on each side so our standard practice was to set the flying pilots at one altitude and the monitoring pilots at a lower one. If the flying pilots RadAlt warning goes off you correct by adding some power and climbing. If the other pilots went off, you cobb the power and go around.

Thats how we set it up and I started my descent down toward the water trying again to stay out of the worst of the rain bands and stay in the vicinity of the position we had. I was below 1000 feet on a run toward the position when we got a pretty severe down draft and I could feel the jet wallowing a bit and developing a much higher sink rate than normal or comfortable. My RadAlt warning went off and I started adding power to arrest the rate of descent, then his RadAlt warning went off and I cobbed the power and hit the Go Around button and started climbing out of there for all we were worth. I asked the FP to check the winds and we had about a 60 knot tailwind (we try to set up the patterns into the wind), which is probably why we got that excessive rate of descent.

Got up to a safe altitude, cleaned up the jet and told the crew we were done and headed for Rosey Roads to get some fuel and regroup. Trying to coordinate all of this with the FP and get a clearance into Rosey and the whole time the AVI is bugging me on the intercom about how RCC wants us to put the DMB in before we can depart. She was on the HF radio with them while we were on the VHF radios up front.

I told her 3 times very directly that we were departing and I would call RCC when we landed and to stand by while we flew the jet and arranged clearance to Rosey because she kept breaking in on the intercom. Finally the Chief yelled at her to shut the hell up while we were trying to get home safely while getting the shit kicked out of us by the wind and rain.

We landed at Rosey and I literally wanted to kiss the deck as I was still shaking over the thought of how close we (I) came to augering it in. The AVI was on the tarmac balling her eyes out over how mean we had been to her and so I had to calm her down and explain how dire our situation had been and that RCC could FOAD if I decide I can't do what they are asking us to do. All 5 of us were pretty shook up because it had been a hell of ride and the reality of how close it was had sunk in by then.

We got some fuel, I called RCC and told them we were done for the night and we got released to fly back to BQN. Took the next day off because it was too shitty to fly or we needed the rest, and then spent the rest of the week flying around PR and a bunch of the surrounding islands doing post storm recon and supply type flights.

I still shake a bit when I tell this story because it was the closest I have come to dying in an airplane, and I started in 1984. So that was my worst experience in a plane.

I should add, the solo sailor rode out the storm without sinking and made it safely through the storm. I believe he was located a day or two later by another CG aircraft or cutter based on our position report.

quote:

Originally posted by armedmd:
Next pulse check, shockable rhythm! We fire the AED and continue CPR. The attendant hands me the phone with the pilot who says he can have on the ground in Charleston SC in 12 minutes. EMS is waiting for us when we arrive and removed the lady from the plane.

Did you ever find out if the lady made it?

Flying into O'Hare from Boise (I think). A guy who was obviously mentally ill decided to refuse orders from the flight crew. He was walking up and down the aisle yelling about Jesus as we were landing. The flight attendant finally got him to sit and them got a big and mean looking passenger to sit next to him.

When I got off the plane the Chicago PD was waiting outside the gate to take him into custody.

When I was in the Army, a bunch of us would get on
planes at Pope AFB.

The Air Force guys would fly us around for a while, then with little warning, usually six minutes, they would open the doors and make us get out! In mid flight. Happened every time.

Flying back from Barbados I was in the last row against the bathrooms. I was thinking, oh great, I'll have to deal with the smell, the noise, and my seat won't recline, but it was much, much worse. My row was actually just half the size of a normal row. I'm 6'2" 220 lbs and it was physically impossible to sit in the seat normally. My knees hit the seat back as I tried to lower myself into the seat. The plane was full, so I was forced to sit split legged with each leg in the neighboring seats leg space. The tray table only folded down about 35-40 degrees before hitting my chest. The situation was so bad the flight attendants were embarrassed and avoided making any eye contact with me for the duration of the 6 hour flight.