Worst airplane ride ever?

[spinlps]

I'm usually in the 75,000 mile / year range and, like BeBop, don't have too many horror stories. Some that come to mind:

- Flying home from Cincy in a snow storm. STL is notorious for delays b/c the two original runways are too close together and one is usually closed in limited visibility. So we're delayed to begin with, we get to STL but the runways are icy so we circle for over an hour before the pilot informs us that they've just closed the airport and that he would be taking us to Chicago to spend the night (it was the last flight out of Cincy).

- Rocky flight from DFW to STL seated next to a fairly large female. She doesn't look well and falls asleep during the flight. We hit some turbulence in midflight and in her sleep grabs my arm and politily vommits on it. Luckily, it was winter and I had a waterproof jacket...

... and then there are the turbo-prop flights, all of which can be an adventure even in the best of weather.

[mikeweil]

*Interesting story about Air Asia: when we took them for the first time (Bangkok to Chiang Mai) my buddy turned to me on landing and said, "Was it just me, or was that the fastest fucking landing you have ever seen?"

One time, I was on a Boeing 757 flight to DFW and when we came in, the pilot just floated the thing down onto the runway. It was so smooth, the whole plane broke out into applause. The flight attendant came on and said, "And after that beautiful landing by Captain Hornblower, welcome to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport." Damnest thing I ever saw. The pilot was out shaking everyone's hand as we left. I still don't know how he did it. I mean, it didn't even feel like the plane was slowing down, never mind touching down! It was a piece of work.

So far I have only three flights under my belt, but on one of them - returning from a Bulgaria vacation - the landing was so smooth I hardly noticed. Applause breaking out there, too. Rewardedly so.

[DTMX]

I was on my first turbo-prop flight - short jump from ATL to Lexington KY. Winds were rocking the plane all over during the descent. Right as we were about to touch down, I could see that we were actually coming in at an angle. I figured the wheels would make contact and the plane would somersault to the gate like a fiery pinwheel. But when the wheels hit, the plane jerked itself straight, we bounced a few times, and that was it. The attendant came on the intercom and said something like "We have arrived at our final destination. As soon as Captain Kangaroo finishes bouncing the plane up to the gate, we will begin deplaning procedures." Not the worst landing I've had, but one of the more interesting.

[medjuck]

Descending into Luang Prabang, amidst steep surrounding mountains, circa 1987 in an old Soviet prop plane with 110 of my closest friends. No seatbelts. No HVAC. Unpaved landing strip. Belly full of dog dinner. (Only kidding on that last part; I passed on the canine.)

Uhhh..What were you doing there?

[BeBop]

Considering the fact that I logged 352,000 flight miles last year, I'm guess I'm glad I don't have more horror stories. One I almost forgot: Romania, 1979. Lost cabin pressure...and about 40 percent of my hearing.

Okay, you've piqued my curiousity. What do you do that allows/causes you to travel so much each year? Where do you consider home?

And what were you doing on a plane in 1979, when your birthdate is listed as 21 July 1983?

...And I'm kinda jealous of all the traveling, by the way.

First, don't be jealous of the travel. It's hard. I've no home, no 'stuff', no family and only rare opportunities to hear music - live or recorded. I'm not complaining, just offering a little reality. Especially post 2001, there's little or no glamour left.

Work keeps me on the road about 49 weeks a year; I get three weeks of vacation during which I (surprise!) travel because I love it.

The birth date is correct; I opted to falsify the year because I found that part of the profile a little too personal. (It's an old-guy thing...for some old guys anyway.)

[catesta]

352,000 miles!

That is amazing.

[BeBop]

352,000 miles!

That is amazing.

A particularly bad year. I'm really hoping to slow down this year.

[Free For All]

Photo of BeBop at work.

[BeBop]

I just finished up a job in Yemen. Believe me, I was on the other end of the gun barrel there.

[clifford_thornton]

Whoa.

Anyway, I didn't much care for the major drops over Greenland flying back to the US from Scandinavia. I didn't realize such large aircraft could fall so far, so fast, and so repeatedly. Yuck. I think I was actually crying and slobberiing on my then-girlfriend's lap...

Recently had a hell of a bumpy run into LaGuardia, and thought we might be landing in the drink - luckily it didn't happen, but that was probably the craziest landing I've ever had.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

I just finished up a job in Yemen. Believe me, I was on the other end of the gun barrel there.

So how macho is Yemen these days? Do you wear a Jambiya around in order to blend in? Romania '79? If you're in the petroleum industry, I hope you're doing better than a mattress on the floor at the San'a Palace Hotel and staying instead at the Sheraton Sana'a Hotel ?

[BeBop]

I just finished up a job in Yemen. Believe me, I was on the other end of the gun barrel there.

So how macho is Yemen these days? Do you wear a Jambiya around in order to blend in? Romania '79? If you're in the petroleum industry, I hope you're doing better than a mattress on the floor at the San'a Palace Hotel and staying instead at the Sheraton Sana'a Hotel ?

Blend in? I don't even try. Jambiya? I'm afraid of hurting myself - as unlikely as this may be. I did a few nights in Yemeni hotels, and many nights sleeping alongside the road, next to my bicycle, which surely would have disappeared, had I not.

BTW, Romania was a pleasure trip, as was most of the Yemen trip (i.e., not work).

Edited January 11, 2006 by BeBop

[BeBop]

I just finished up a job in Yemen. Believe me, I was on the other end of the gun barrel there.

So how macho is Yemen these days? Do you wear a Jambiya around in order to blend in? Romania '79? If you're in the petroleum industry, I hope you're doing better than a mattress on the floor at the San'a Palace Hotel and staying instead at the Sheraton Sana'a Hotel ?

Also, the Sheraton was too scary for me - tanks parked in the driveway and all. If Americans stay at the Sheraton and Americans are the target, an irrigation ditch looks mighty safe to me.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Geez, I dunno.....I've got a thing about the creepy crawlies. I guess I'd sooner lose the wheels than wake up with a Puff Adder staring me down or some scorpion trying to bed down for the night in my belly button lint.

[Christiern]

For a three-year period, in the 1960s, I flew from New York to London and California, every month. Never had a problem--also no problem on the helicopter to Kennedy (from atop the then PanAm building. A few years earlier, however, my wife and I flew from New York to Copenhagen, via Reykjavík and Oslo. Coming in for a landing in Iceland that morning, the wheels of the plane--a Douglas prop job (C-54)--struck a fence. It gave us quite a jolt and obviously caused some damage, because they were unable to get the gear down for Oslo. So, we skipped Norway and flew in circles until most of the fuel was used up. Then we were told to prepare for a belly landing, remove all sharp objects, bury our head in a pillow, and brace ourselves. We were told that this sort of thing happens and that it usually works out fine. In the meantime, they gave us drink after drink; my wife was too scared to drink, so I had doubles, and felt no pain when we finally made a remarkably smooth landing.

We thought we were in Copenhagen, but it turned out to be Hamburg!

In a way, it was a great experience, because we got to know fellow passengers who we otherwise wouldn't have spoken to. They put us all up in a hotel, and when an elderly couple from Vermont announced that they might have more liquor from the duty-free shop than Danish customs officers would accept, everybody brought out their booze and we spent the night getting drunk.

Years later, I mentioned this flight to a pilot from that airline. "Were you on that flight? Well, we don't do that anymore." Except for a press junket over which I had no control, I have avoided that airline since.

[chris olivarez]

Flying over the Pacific at night in an endless holding pattern and flying low enough to realize that the sea was very unhappy that night and then a few years later being in a plane that was barely outrunning a rapidly moving and massive rain and thunderstorm were both very disconcerting experiences.

[connoisseur series500]

Descending into Luang Prabang, amidst steep surrounding mountains, circa 1987 in an old Soviet prop plane with 110 of my closest friends. No seatbelts. No HVAC. Unpaved landing strip. Belly full of dog dinner. (Only kidding on that last part; I passed on the canine.)

How the Hell did you get into Luang Prabang in 1987? Laos was pretty much closed to the world at that time. I went into Vietnam three times between 1985-6 via Air France, but Americans weren't allowed in at the time.

Wasn't a Deithelm tour, was it? I remember that Diethelm were starting to offer flights into Cambodia and Laos around 1987. It was damned expensive, and I was loath to visit any more nearby Communist countries after denouncing the Vietnamese government in a couple letters to the Bankok Post.

I was going to say that I've flown quite a few times, and didn't find anything too scary.

I swear I did see the wings flapping on the old airplane we flew from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi in 1985 or 86 (can't remember which visit it was.) That had me alarmed for a bit.

Lunch consisted of an orange...

Edited January 12, 2006 by connoisseur series500

[connoisseur series500]

postscript...

I just caught up by reading the entire thread. BeBop has been in interesting places at interesting times. I cannot imagine you going into Luang Prabang with an airplane full of friends unless you did construction work for the ex-Soviet government. No American was allowed in Laos in 1987 unless perhaps an officially-invited group looking for POW remains.

Either you're making this shit up, or you are the fellow depicted in Free-For-All's picture.

[connoisseur series500]

Photo of BeBop at work.

I'm leaning this way as well...

[ejp626]

Mine was the flight from Bangkok to Tokyo that took three days to complete.

...

Narita airport (Toyko) was now closed for the night so we stayed in a HK hotel. The next morning we finally took off and managed to reach Narita in the afternoon without any further problems. Total time, three days.

For a literary take on this, you might find Toyko Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta interesting. It is about 13 people stuck in an unnamed Asian airport trying to get into Toyko and a freak snowstorm closes the airport, so they spend the night telling each other stories. It's being marketed as an updated Canterbury Tales, though in fact it is closer in spirit to Boccaccio's The Decameron. Most of the stories are a bit too much like fairy tales for my tastes, but it was still an interesting read.

I can't recall too many bad flights, just too many trans-Atlantic flights that stretched on for far too long. I've got more than my share of Amtrak horror stories though.

[sidewinder]

Flights in to LA from Europe often tend to be exciting, with sudden drops in altitude around 1 hour from touchdown. I've had that happen to me a couple of times.

[Guest]

My first trip over seas was with a school trip when I was 16. However, only one other girl from my school was going to Spain with me so we had to catch up with other groups in Chicago. Little did our parents know when they sent us off in Detroit that we would be in for a surprise. The airline we took from O'Hare to Madrid was Iberia Airlines. At the time they were on strike, but they were flying anyway. The only difference was we had to put our own luggage in the belly of the plane, we didn't have any flight attendants for what turned out to be an 11 hour trip (due to weather), and the only food we had was a small paper sack under each seat with an apple, mini bottle of water, and a 1/2 sandwich. Believe me, the plane was loaded with high school students and about 6 adults in charge. The plane was trashed! Eventually kids started breaking into the attendants' food area and pulling out more drinks and snacks that were stored away. I was in Spain for a week and the worst part was that the airlne was still on strike on the return flight so I had to do it all over again. Luckily the flight was more like 7 hours...and this time I packed extra water!

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Photo of BeBop at work.

I'm leaning this way as well...

No, he's always up to speed of the latest Borders coupons, so I think he's on their payroll....just travels around looking for more unique spots to open bookstores. Didn't he say he's soon off to scout out Tavan Bogd Uul in Mongolia as a possible next site? Buy two books and a cd and receive a fresh oxygen tank and tea in a thermos.

[gslade]

i HATE to fly

i haven't been inside an airplane for maybe 10 years

I used to work a job that required constant travel, US and international. I have not been inside an airplane since I quit that job in 96. I think I logged 275,000 miles one year. I had one flight to Pocatello Idaho in which the turbo prop plane had a landing gear malfunction when landing. It was also the beginning of a bad storm. The plane had been pitched about all the way from Salt Lake City (where I transferred flights) and then the rough landing topped the bad trip off. I guess we were lucky it was not worse as no one was hurt. The planes still do not bother me as much as airports (hotels) and traveling for work rather than pleasure.

Edited January 13, 2006 by gslade

[danasgoodstuff]

I've never had a truly bad flight experience but my mum had one that's impacted me. We were living in Buffalo NY when I was little in the late '50s and she went to DC to see her dad who was there on forest Service business. On the wayback they hit a big thunder storm in a prop plane, CD3 or Lockheed Electra. Whole nine yards, bumps big sudden descents, etc. Eventually landed in Rochester. Made her v. reluctant to fly ever since. She did fly down when our FB was born prematurely and was in the hospital, but that's 'cause she's her only grandchild. One of the many reasons we drove from OR to Saskatchewan very summer...

I used to take the train a lot but other than running late on scheduals that are already slower than when they ran steam, I've never had a particularly bad experience.