Flight Horror Stories

robertmee

Lifetime Supporting Member
Join Date
Feb 2008
Location
NC
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1,940
Like me, I'm sure many of you travel often for your job. This year has been exceptionally heavy for me, travelling nearly every week since the beginning of the year. To that end, I've seen my fair share of funny/weird/horrific events while travelling. Here are a few of mine...Please share yours!

Atlanta Hartsfield: Boarding an AirTran 737 on a humid summer afternoon, we were being hurried in an effort to beat the impending thunderstorm (anyone who travels through ATL in the summer knows this). We didn't make it. I was about 1/3 the way into the main Coach cabin when all hell broke lose. Wind gusts of 60mph were buffetting the plane and blew a luggage cart loose from it's towmotor. It slammed into the plane and sent a heavy shudder. Coupled with the rain, wind and lightning, it was quite the show and this one middle age lady began freaking out. She literally started crawling over passengers yelling, 'get me the flock off this plane'. Airport authorities had to evacuate us into the jetway (wouldn't let us back into the terminal) and we all stood there for near an hour while the storm subsided and they checked the plane for damage from the runaway cart.

CLE to RDU: Flying in a small embraer jet we hit a thunderstorm about half way into the flight. At 28,000 feet we weren't above the activity and caught the brunt of it. It just so happened that drink service had been about 1/2 completed when the pilot instructed the lone flight attendant to take her seat. About 5 minutes later we hit a 1000 foot drop and those people with drinks got quite the bath. We had cola dripping from the baggage compartments the rest of the flight in. That was one time where I really thought it was possible the wings could fall off the plane the turbulance was so violent.

MEM to RDU: Flying in a 3x3 boeing, we were on final descent (about 5 minutes out) when the 10 year old kid behind our row violently vomited. He spewed all over the back of my seat and into the floor. His 14 year old sister sitting next to him started freaking out and screaming and trying to crawl out of her seat (seatbelt sign still on of course). Me and the lady sitting next to me curled our feet up into our seats in fear that puke would start streaming down the floor and over our shoes any moment. The stench was horrendous and it was the longest taxi to the gate of my life. The poor kid when we able to get up and look back (of course you HAVE to look), was covered in puke on his shorts, legs, socks and down into his shoes. To his credit tho, he was more calm than his sister :)
 
I was on a flight from PHL to West Palm Beach the morning of 911. The captain said we had to make an emergency landing. We landed in GSO I think. He mentioned that all planes were being grounded. Several people were on their cell phones. My first thought was that something went wrong with ground control comms on a national level. When I got into the vacant terminal, I thought OMG something is really wrong. They were hearding us to baggage claim like cattle. When I saw the TV lights and cameras, I thought yep, something is really wrong. We were piled on buses and were driven the rest of the way. The bus radio played the news so that's when I found out. At the first rest stop I watched the event for the first time slack-jawed with the others.
 
I was on a flight from PHL to West Palm Beach the morning of 911. The captain said we had to make an emergency landing. We landed in GSO I think. He mentioned that all planes were being grounded. Several people were on their cell phones. My first thought was that something went wrong with ground control comms on a national level. When I got into the vacant terminal, I thought OMG something is really wrong. They were hearding us to baggage claim like cattle. When I saw the TV lights and cameras, I thought yep, something is really wrong. We were piled on buses and were driven the rest of the way. The bus radio played the news so that's when I found out. At the first rest stop I watched the event for the first time slack-jawed with the others.

A good friend of mine was on PHL to MSP that day and was waylayed to Ohio somewhere. He had to procure his own rental to get back home. Scary stuff indeed. Having travelled so much and living 20 minutes from the airport, I found it very weird the days following not seeing planes in the sky. I remember giving a little silent cheer when I saw the first ones returning to the sky.
 
Long before That Awful Day, I was going through Customs at Pearson in Toronto, and had my computer / toolbag inspected.

"I am confiscating these", announced the inspector, holding up two Entrelec terminal block screwdrivers. Long, orange, and with a spinning knob at the end, they were just perfect for the terminal blocks I'd spent two weeks doing wiring checks on.

"Why ?", I asked. "I've been traveling with those for months, and went through this very checkpoint two weeks ago."

The inspector set his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and jabbed towards me with the screwdrivers.

"I think you know why !" he exclaimed.

"No, really, what's the matter with a small screwdriver ?". I backed up a step.

"It would be different if there was only one." He had returned to his bored bureaucrat tone.

His statement struck me as so bizarre that I didn't pause at all before blurting out "What, am I going to use them for chopsticks ?"

I didn't get arrested, or extra-inspected, or even hassled about the rest of my toolkit. He just calmly took my two nice terminal block screwdrivers and put them in a drawer in his desk, then stamped my customs form and turned to the next person in line.

Over a decade later, I still wonder sometimes what on earth he was referring to. Maybe he was just trying to make my day a little more surreal.
 
As far as flying: I must be a hometown boy down to the subconscious, because I cannot stay awake in a 737. The sound of 737 engines, no matter what vintage or flight conditions, is just a lullabye to me.

By contrast, the hydraulics in an Airbus sound like they're going to fall clean out of the hull. I spend every Airbus flight trying to calm down from the nails-on-chalkboard noise of the wing flap positioners.
 
Heh, I also had the honor to have my working set of screwdrivers confiscated at Toronto's Pearson in 1998 - long before anyone started bothering about that kind of stuff in US.

I also seem to have some special luck with people getting seriously ill onboard: it happened to me three times. Twice on trans-Pacific flights to and from Tokyo: once, after taking off from Seattle and having made about half-way to Ancorage, we had to return, dump fuel (that's a 747!) and land in Vancouver, BC. On another occasion, Narita to Twin Cities Northwestern flight had to land in Ancorage - adding 2 more hours to already tiring 12-hours hop...

O, and another one: due to adverse weather conditions, O'Hare to Narita flight had to take the westernmost route - right over Kamchatka peninsula and Kurile islands. We were told that we got an OK from the Russians on the provision that the passengers would not try to take pictures. A lot of people, myself included, immediately remembered the unlucky KAL 007 flight... but I am still around :)

BTW, the volcanoes of Kamchatka looked great from above.
 
Still ticked..

Flying from Vancouver home, I went through security and they relieved me of my 4mm terminal screw driver. My partner, was allowed to keep his stainless steel monogrammed pen....:( WTF?
 
I got my 1/2 full 3.6 oz can of deoderant confiscated. The limit was 3.5 oz. I was going to ask how much more explosive .1 oz of deoderant is (not to mention the can was half empty) but I thought better of it. I know rules are rules, but c'mon....

OH, and another thing....TWICE now, I have come home to find (or rather my wife to find) ziploc bags of another woman's cosmetics in my luggage. PLEASE, luggage handlers, quit throwing loose **** into my bag. I'm tired of being accused of having an affair. Has this happened to anyone else, or am I the only unlucky *******??
 
I have had the flight attendants dump meals on me. The worst was a Quantas flight. After we boarded we found out that ALL the electronics on our section were out. Even the lights. On top of that we got out on the tarmac and then the pilot thought we were heavy so we went back to the terminal to off load excess fuel. After the long flight from Auckland to Las Angeles we were late, duh. Two hours late. Our gate was taken. We had to wait another 30 min for a ramp to move up to our 747 and buses to take us off. Guess what? I had missed my connection. In fact had missed two connecting flight. Fortunately I got a flight out back to Portland Or. I know there are worse stories out there like the recent ones where they are stuck for 9 hrs. I wouldn't put up with this. I would open the door and go down the chute and screw everything up. I don't have patience for incompetence.
 
Fortunately I got a flight out back to Portland Or.
This is not a horror story, but I miss landing in Portland OR on clear day. One of the most beautiful views around: just stretch your arm and touch Mt.Hood :)

Used to fly a lot there on my previous job. Not anymore, unfortunately.
 
I was stuck in LA trying to get back to Portland, Or.

This is not a horror story, but I miss landing in Portland OR on clear day. One of the most beautiful views around: just stretch your arm and touch Mt.Hood :)

Used to fly a lot there on my previous job. Not anymore, unfortunately.
You didn't understand. I was stuck in LA. I live in Vancouver, WA which is just across the river from Portland. On clear days I see both Mt Hood and St Helens on my way to work.

When landing you fly right by Mt Hood. You can see Mt St Helens, Adams the three sister and sometime even Rainer.

I always monitor the Volcano cam.
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/
To see what the weather is like.
 
Waited on the tarmac at DFW for over an hour because an FAA inpector came on board for a surprise inspection and found there was only one ashtray on the plane. The MEL (Minimum Equipment List) required 2 ashtrays, even though it was 100% non-smoking. So we watched for an hour as the mechanic kept bringing different ashtrays on board until he found one that fit into the holder.

I suggested to the inpector that we could use an empty beer bottle but he didn't find that funny.
 
1971 I was crew on a nuc submarine. While in Guam we had just tied up and were starting to take on shorepower when we got told to disconnect. Some Air Force guys came aboard and we pulled out. We got told we were going out to rescue a B52 flight crew that had to bail out in a typhoon. Got clear of the island dove and rang up full power. Ran at full power for 24 hours surfaced and picked up 4 guys out of life rafts. Extremely heavy seas and dangerous rolls - worst was 55. What was funny about it was the only enlisted guy had to be woken up in his life raft - the flight officers were sick as dogs. Our engineer not only suffered sea sickness but he was literally green so naturally we gave him a bad time for that forever more. The other submarine sent out there got one guy and the last one was presumed to go down with the plane. We spent another day surfaced in that damn typhoon machine gunning the top secret life rafts the P 3s had dropped to ensure there were enough.

Dan Bentler
 
On the other hand....the best ever flight was on the Concorde when it came here in 1995 for the airshow. For $1000, I went on a 2.5 hour flight up over Hudson's Bay at Mach 2 and 52,000 feet. Treated everyone like royalty.
 
London to Toronto: Long flight, quite dull really, then about 1 hour before landing we hit a storm, went through the thick of it and it was real bad, drinks everywhere, like above plane drops hundreds of feet etc. Then to top this off we were told all planes had been detoured from Toronto due to the bad weather/snow and ice. The pilot then told us that we didnt have enough fuel to detour so we had to land in Toronto. The storm was with us for the rest of the flight, we all had to adopt crash positions on landing and the firecrew were on the ground waiting for us.

It was quite possibly the worst time of my life, the cabin was full and nobody spoke, we had a real scary landing but the pilot managed it and when we came to a stop everyone in the cabin stood up and cheered and clapped.

That was around 20 years ago now and touch wood i havent had a bad flight since!
 

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