Interesting flying storys!

Aviation Airlines
1

I thought it would be neat to have a post for all of the interesting flying storys we all have :slight_smile: .
Heres mine.
5 or so years ago i was a on a Delta Connection flight from Lga-gso on a crj. We were going downt he runway taking off all the sudden and we started rapidly slowing down(aborted takeoff.) A generator wasn’t working and we would have been fine but it sure scared the living shit outta me :open_mouth: .

I was flying a on usairways express flight from dca-alb(at night)…this was during the blackout in the north eat and it was sorta neat flying over the area and no lights were on down below and only seeing pitch black.

2 years ago i was on a flight from lga-alb on usairways express.  The aircraft was a saab 340 of colgan air.  everything was delayed (as usual at Lga :stuck_out_tongue:) so we thought nothing about it sitting there waiting to be called for boarding.  Well at 11pm or so the whole flight crew came up into the gate area and called the flight over to the counter.  They announced that the air condition unit on the aircraft was broke( this is late july early august still very hot) but since it just happens that a saab 340 maintence base at alb they said they would fly passengers up their if they still wanted too.  Most of the people agreed so they boarded the flight and we prepared for departure.....they did everything they could while we taxied to keep the plane cool but it was still very hot on board.  thankfully the cabin crew went through every 5 minutes with free ice water and re- fills :smiley: .  It was a long hot flight but we made it to albany a few hours late.
2

About a year ago I was on a Delta Connection EMB-145 taking off from ATL going to LEX. I fell asleep during taxi and woke up as we were aborting take off. I was out of it and never really found out what happened.

~1992 Going into ATL from SAT I was on a Delta MD-88 flying 1st class and we rolled to avoid a Cessna. I saw the plane! :open_mouth:

A couple years ago flying from SEA to YKM on Horizon Q200 we left even though YKM was fogged in and it’s only 20-30 min total flying time. Pilots requested VFR on top direct Rainier. We circled the top of Mt. Rainier in December. It was Unbelievable.

When I first soloed I was 20 years old and I was on one of my first flights just out screwing around. I was circling over an Interstate looking at the semi trucks going down the road and out of the corner of my eye I saw a crop duster coming straight up at me. I just turned around, flew home and landed without incident. I was freaked out!

3

some relatives at mind were landing at a atlanta on a delta 767(or some big mainline) jet in from somewhere and the runway was still occupied and they said they barely had enough lift and had to make and got to see the Atl control tower up close and personal as they whiped around it.

My dad was on a flight from on Usairways Express clt-lex or sdf and they were flying through fog and all of a sudden the pilot sharply made a climb upward…then they annoucned they were diverting because of fog. (wonder how close they were to the ground). :open_mouth:

4

Probably 200ft, the standard (cat I) ILS Decision height before going missed.

5

On (original) National 33 Dayton Beach via Orlando and Tampa to Houston - IAH on 4/21/1977 (B727-235, N4742), the weather got rough. Nearing Houston, the pilots told the flight attendents to remain seated. The rough air lasted only a few minutes.

On Pacific East Air (aka Sea and Sun) 7 from Los Angeles to Honolulu on 9/24/1983 (DC-8-62H, N39305), the aircraft made a very rough landing: first on the right hand side main gear then the other two gears.

Perhaps the flight I liked most was on Air Hawaii (the one that operated Cessnas, not the one that operated DC-10’s) flight number unknown, from Lihue to Honolulu via Princeville (Hanalei, on the island of Kaui). On the segment from Lihue to Princeville, I was the only passanger on Cessna 402 N4061Q. I got the co-pilot seat. The pilot complained about all of the backpacks he was going to have to load when we landed at Princeville.

6

Grand Cayman Islands. First intro to short field takeoff. Talk about RAW power.

Souix Falls SD. Dinner cancelled due to thunderstorms. White as a ghost after that flight along with many other passengers. Nature’s wrath not to be messed with.

Columbus Ohio. Aborted take off. Rear door became unlatched. Taxiied back to the terminal for mechanics to look at.

White Plains NY on a Dash 8. All seated, next thing you know, plane jacked up to change tire, had gone flat after passengers loaded, and stairs removed from plane.

7

There I was, dangerously low on fuel…

8

Two more flights, though not on civilian aircraft.

My first ride on a UH-60 Blackhawk was very short. At the end of my Hawaii Army National Guard summer camp, when we were to return home, it rained very hard. We were trucked out. We got to one place where the mud was so bad the deuce-and-a-halves couldn’t make with us loaded in the back. Being an aviation company, naturally, we had helicopters. It was decided that we would be flown over the bad road area. What they didn’t tell us was that it was to be a very short flight. I got on board the Blackhawk, it lifted up, and was on the ground again in a minute. That also qualifies has my shortest flight.

One day I went for a ride in one of Hueys. (That’s the great thing about being in an aviation company - you get to ride the helicopters on training missions!) The flight was proceeding great then all of suddenly the master caution light came on. The pilot - who had been flying for decades - auto rotated the chopper into a park on the north shore of Oahu.

9

Back in the mid 90’s I was flying from JFK-DIA(old Denver International) on TWA. It was a summer afternoon with a lot of turbulent skies on the horizon. As expected the captain had warned us of possible moderate turbulence. Soon after take off sure enough we were bouncing to and fro, people screaming, crying, puking, praying. Captain said just a few more minutes and we should be in the clear. Sure enough, all smoothed out. When the beverage cart came out, this beautiful blonde FA came down the aisle, I mean a knockout. She asked me in a sultry sexy voice “sir, would like some TWA-coffee or perhaps some TWA-Tea” :open_mouth:
I looked over at my wife and said " I told you this trip was gonna be great" :laughing:

10

Now thats funny! :laughing:

11

Even though it’s posted in the “airlines” forum, the OP didn’t specify, so…

9-21-01 My wife and another instructor went to go pick up one of our planes in Cape May, NJ. It was left there by a renter who was instructed to land that terrible morning 10 days prior. Weather was IFR, we got about halfway there when I mentioned being happy about flying the Archer back, the 172 was not very well equipped for IFR. The other instructor said HE was flying the Archer back, that WE were flying the 172 back…
Well none of the 3 of us had the keys to the cessna.
Told McGuire Approach that we needed to return to N14. After a few moments we were told to fly direct to RBV VOR, no real new “clearance” was given. So our clearance limit then became RBV. They were extremely busy for some reason and we couldn’t get a word in at all. We reached the VOR and had to begin holding while waiting for further instructions. When we finally got their attention again they didnt know who we were,where we were or where we were going. We found a hole, cancelled IFR and went back home.

When I had about 150 hours I took a flight from New Jersey to Florida and back. I learned a LOT that trip…

  1. There are some very large (2000ft+ agl) towers in south carolina. :open_mouth:
  2. Flight Service is not infallable. “radar does not show any precipitation” cannot be counted on. :confused:
  3. It’s always a good idea to land and wait it out, even if that means waking up to 100 and 1/4 in the morning. :imp:

Flew a seneca into OSH during Airventure. That was interesting.

Numerous door popping open incidents.

Had landing gear that wouldn’t come UP in an arrow. Not a big deal, but we really didnt feel like flying 3 hours with the gear down, nor did we feel like overnighting in Syracuse. (I ended up getting them up, it was a bad switch)

Witnessed that same seneca land gear up just a few feet away. I saw them in the flare with the gear up, took a moment to recognize what I was seeing, then grabbed for the unicom radio and yelled “SENECA GO AROUND!”
It was too late. Whack whack whack crunch scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrape. http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/punish.gif

Got some terrible carb ice right after takeoff on Christmas Day '01. Of course we’ve all heard that applying carb ice will decrease the rpm a bit, and if you do in fact have carb ice it will be more noticeable, but I was not prepared for how terrible the engine started running after applying carb heat. Sounded like it was running on one cylinder.
Landed and took another plane.

Last week hit turbulence bad enough to send the toilet seat flying, ending up laying in the middle of the aisle.

The rest you’ll have to hear in the hangar after supplying the beer. 8)

12

We were flying on United from Jacksonhole to Denver. First the pilot pushed the throttles forward and held the breaks. When he let go, we shot out of the 6000 foot runway. We were climbing and then all of a sudden the plane dropped what felt like a hundred or so feet in less then a second. That was scary (and the drop can be credited to the mountains).

13

Welcome to a short field take off technique :smiley:

Allen

14

I have a couple old Denver Stapleton stories too. I posted some or all of these before but here goes again since they fit this topic.

UAL out of Stapleton to BWI, (think an L-1011?) parallel to another airliner, reached 30K nearing Kansas. FAs came out with carts to serve. All of a sudden my feet were in my ears and my kidneys were in my hair. Have no idea how far we dropped but the FAs went down and a cart spilled over. Thank god we all still had our seatbelts on. I think the FAs held on so they didn’t go up before they went down. At first I thought the pilot bumped yoke with knee lol because we also did a sharp 45 dive, but then I saw the 747 flying about 60 degrees across our path and I could see the faces of it’s passengers. I’m sure ATC was analyzed after that incident. Pilot silent but one by one passengers were tapping each others shoulders pointing out the other plane during a deafening silence.

Stapleton to ASE near New Years Eve 1988, United Express prop during rough winter turbulence. Four feet of snow the night before. Flight phobia passenger across aisle from me was shaking hands hard and almost in tears. I was praying. Felt like brick wall, drop, brick wall, drop all the way to ASE. Could almost feel mountain peaks scraping belly of prop because we had to fly so low to try to stay under the really bad stuff. Someone told me JFK Jr. was once on same flight just like that one and he said “never again.”

Stapleton to ASE, United Express prop starter failed. Not enough flights to change us over so we had to wait 4 hours for them to replace starter and we flew on same plane to ASE. Glad it started.

Departing OSH last year on CRJ, first passenger boarding became extremely irate since he somehow hid the size of his carry ons from ticket agent. Was attempting to board with TWO full sized carry-ons that won’t fit on an RJ plus an adult human sized stuffed animal. He was traveling alone. He refused to acknowledge FAs demand for him to check his stuff in so they demanded he step aside. Then he refused to step aside!! Suddenly there were about 5 or 6 TSAs etc. surrounding him. He came up to me (standing a few people back) and said “Miss, can you help me out and take one of mine on board with you?” I only had one tiny bag so guess I looked like I needed to carry more lol. I told him didn’t matter if I helped him or not, the bag wouldn’t fit on the plane. Finally he gave up as the TSAs were guarding him and we boarded. Saw him later on plane so they took his stuff from him and put it in the belly. I know what was on everyone’s mind because this gentleman was obviously from the middle east.

Departing SLC few years ago on AA CRJ400, backup air system failed, pilot refused to fly and waited for maintenance as I watched tons of snow pile up on wing outside my window. Delayed almost 2 hours but had to stay on the plane. Fortunately, they de-iced not at the gate, but just before takeoff on corner of runway.

Two years ago, DEN to ASE. ASE closed just prior to flight due to blizzard. Transferred to last flight into EGE, pilot changed jet to a prop. I looked at couple behind me and said “I prefer the jets.” Gal said, “Oh these props are no problem.” I said I know, I’ve been on them before, but both times now with bad weather." She said “oh you’ll be ok.” (p.s. flying almost never bothers me, in fact the more steep turns the better lol). Same thing - brick wall, fall, brick wall, fall. Been on smoother roller coasters. Completely IFR, total whiteout, fog and snow. Entire plane smelled of puke. Didn’t pray - said GOODBYE lol. Circled EGE 3 times before he could SEE runway, wings never level once. Landed through snowflakes size of your hand but on wheels down, prop fishtailed more than once and we almost went off runway. As plane slowed down to a roll, all were silent and recovering. Little girl broke silence and said, “Mommy, I threw up!” All the passengers broke into laughter. Ticket agent who I was filing lost luggage claim with (got it 2 days later) said “you know, your pilot was only one crazy enough to fly in here.”

Five feet of snow that night up at Snowmass. :laughing: :smiley: :laughing:

15

I declared on departure from 28R at KCMH in an AEST. I did my flight control check and felt something pop. So I did it again without any problem. The AEST is all push tube controls, so if something had broke one of the flight controls wouldn’t have moved. On the takeoff roll the (either) fuel psi or fuel flow was inop. I thought to myself, “I could have sworn that was working before.” The aircraft was fresh out of MX. My next thought was (during the t/o roll still), “man they used some powerful cleaning products.” As soon as I rotated the cabin started to fill with fuel, my shoes were socked with in 10 seconds.
I made one radio call to this effect…“Starcheck ### is declaring an emergency, I have a fuel leak in the cockpit and will be executing a right 360 to land 28L” The next thing I heard was, “say again.” I really didn’t want to push the talk again with fuel vapors filling the cockpit and luckily someone holding short caught the whole thing and replied for me.

I was back on the ground and on the ramp before the CFR arrived. With in, I’d guess, 4 min I had about 1" of standing fuel in the cockpit.

Airnet had an airplane ready for me before I was even on the ramp, and I was in the air about 12min later. Would have been 10 but I needed new shoes and socks from my car. Oh ya, 3 minutes to throw up too.

Turns out that during MX they replaced the fuel psi/flow guage. When I did the flight control check I pulled the line off the back and fuel under psi was shooting all over the back of the instrument panel.

That’s my story.

16

Ding ding ding we have a winner!

17

All I know is that I will never fly a turboprop in the mountains. It was scary enough in an Airbus.

18

i was working a flight from SKB-MCI. when we were on our approach into MCI everything felt find, and we heard the double dings to take our jumpseats for landing, we were going side to side then we finally touchdowned, BUT we were landing way too fast coming in, and we were landing we had the right gear down, but then we bounced up, left wheels down then we bounced up again, this happend about 4 times, the passenger in front of me was scared straight (i was thinking of my commands, thats how bad it was). we got off the plane and headed through customs, passengers couldn’t believe we had to get on that plane again lol. the captain told me, we had crosswinds and lost hydrolics right before we landed

19

With the anniversary this week of the Air Florida 737 that went down into the Potomac shortly after takeoff, it reminded me of of a flight I had that same day coming into National. I was flying to Baltimore for business out of ORD and because of snow the day before, my flight was canceled. This was back in the day that if your flight was canceled you could check with the other carriers who would honor your ticket. Everything else to BWI was delayed, so I decided to shop for a flight into National and take METRA downtown and grab an Amtrak train to Baltimore.

At this time I was flying into Washington DC on a regular basis and was used to the scenery. As we neared touchdown aboard a TWA B727-200, we passed over the river in the vicinity of the 14th St. bridge and for some reason I looked down at the frozen river and thought how horrible it would be to go down into a river in this kind of weather.

It was starting to snow heavily when we landed. There were a lot of delays and cancellations, so my decision to use Amtrak seemed to be the best route. When I arrived at the Amtrak station in Baltimore, the cabbie said “It must have been a real mess back at National?” I responded that it was snowing pretty heavy and things were getting backed up. He responded that apparently I hadn’t heard about the Air Florida crash. The plane had gone down about 45 minutes after I arrived! I still remember the chill I got when he told me the news. After probably over 30 flights into National in the past year without ever thinking about a crash into the frozen river, for some reason that day the thought crossed my mind and less than an hour later it became reality.

20

At the time, I worked for Innotech Aviation in Toronto, a local FBO.

On the ramp that day, were two Gulfstreams from Conoco out of New York. The CEO was on one, and 3 ‘Other Conoco staff’ were on the second one.

I overheard the pilots of the 2nd Gulfstream attempting to explain to the 3 passengers, that they had a specific time frame to arrive in New York, or they wouldn’t get in!!, and could we please hurry up.

One of the 3 passengers laid into the pilot and set him straight!!!

Afew minutes passed, and I saw the CEO’s jet leave, followed afew minutes later by the 2nd Gulfstream. The 3 passengers were still in the lounge when their Gulfstream taxied by.

They ‘Ordered me’ to ‘Follow that Jet’, and we all jumped in the Innotech Air Side courtesy car. We caught up to it on Kilo Taxi way, the aircraft stopped and the Gulfstream AirStairs were lowered.

The 3 passengers ran up the stairs, only to be met by the CEO of Conoco and a barage of swear words. He told them to take the airlines back, and when they did get back, to meet him in his office.

They all came down the stairs, I had heard every word, with the CEO watching they asked if I could Please drive them to the terminal.