Ever have an airplane scare?

[RocketManJames]

Curious if anyone has actually had a real situation on an airplane. I've flown plenty of times in my life, but not once have I ever had the cabin lose pressure and have the oxygen masks drop down. I've never had any serious problems mid-flight. Just curious if anyone had any seriously scary situations happen to them while on a flight.

The closest thing to a scare I have experienced involved an elderly lady that badly choked on her food during a flight. We had to make an emergency landing and rush her off to a hospital.

-RMJ

[funkymunky]

No major situation. I did fly on the second day they allowed planes to fly after 9/11. It was pretty eerie. Something like 10-12 people on the whole plane. Combined with the general sombre atmosphere at the time, it was not a fun time.

[Sponger.]

[ QUOTE ]
Something like 10-12 people on the whole plane.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm really suprised that there planes weren't completely packed with people trying to get home.

[funkymunky]

I was surprised too. But, with international flights particularly, people were wary of flying at the time. I was attending a conference, and two of the key speakers were not able to show up, as they would have been travelling from Europe.

Even the airport was very quiet, traffic wise.

[Overdrive]

Just a little scary, twice so far. In 2000 I was flying from Dallas to Reno and the plane lost power to one engine. It was an American Airlines MD-80 by the way. They made an announcement and we made a quick landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a pretty smooth landing and it was all handled very professionaly and there was no panicking or anything. But of course, we didn't find out that the reason for the quickl landing in New Mexico was becuase one of the engines had gone out until we reached the ground.

Another time I was flying from Memphis to Dallas on an American Airlines Fokker F-100 and there were heavy thunderstorms in Dallas. But the pilot thought he could probably land anyway. We started our descent and the plane really started shaking and shivering the closer we got to the runway. We were still descending toward our landing and it seemed like we were going to land. We were fairly close to the runway, probably 1000 feet or so (guesstimate from what I remember looking out the window) when the pilot aborted the landing and pulled up on the plane and ascended back upwards. He made an announcement saying the weather was just too bad to land in, so we circled around dallas for a long time above the weather. Then he made an announcement that we were going to Shreveport, Louisiana to refuel. So we flew down there and when we finally made it back to Dallas the storms were over.

[LegallyBlind]

i was flying in a little cesna from into logan airport. as we were about 5 min from landing, the plane dipped hard to the left and started going down. after about a 5-10 second drop (and by drop i mean nose of the plane pointing toward the ground), our pilot righted the plane, but didn't say a [censored] word until after we landed (longest 5 min. EVER!!, because in those plane your sitting right next to the pilot and he could easily turn around and say something. Anyway after we landed, he explained that we got too close behind a larger plane and the backdraft from their engines slowed our plane down and caused it to lose its lift.

I don't know how close we actually came though, because those cesnas are pretty light and can probably be righted about 100x easier than larger planes

[CharlieDontSurf]

Flying to Bettles Alaska got caught in a strom in a small cesna or whatever small airplane it was. The guy flying was my dads buddy, bush pilot, and my brother n i were in back seats. The turbulence was like scary bad...even my dad who is a 30 yr+ captain for Northwest was seriously freaked out and he and Don, the pilot, were arguing like 24/7 about flying [censored]. Both control freaks.
We ended up landing eventually at some random airstrip in some tiny village and the plane spun like crazy when we landed...it was early winter.
My brother was pukking like 24/7...i was listening to hard rock on my cd player as loud as possible.

Also once had the cabin pressure problem flying to alaska but wasnt that big of a deal...your way more likely to get [censored] in a small plane then a commercial airliner. But if you get [censored] in a commercial airliner...your dead.

[Gin 'n Tonic]

Have done a commercial flight with a pinhole in the door seal next to me. Full flight, couldn't move - like having someone blowing a loud, high pitched whistle in your ear for 45 minutes - not fun.

[imitation]

Landing in HK was the scariest thing i've ever done, horrible weather. I guess it's normal for the place but the first time I went in I was terrified. I've heard stories of the hold airport which apparently was just crazy.

[Duke]

The first time I flew out of SNA I was pretty scared. I didn't know they had to cut the engines after takeoff between the airport and the water (or something) and I thought we were all going to die.

~D