Most terrifying real aiviation experience?

[RIC_BARKER]

What's your worst real avaiation experience/incident?

I've had a tailstrike in a 744, and seen a spoiler get ripped off in-flight (742).

The worst was by far was a landing we made in Liverpool, England. It was very windy, and raining buckets, visibility was also pretty bad, clouds down to about 300-400 feet. We we on approach, getting buffeted around, when I saw the runway lights out of the window rushing. I remember thinking "We've gone a LONG way past the threshold now, why doesn't he just put it down?" We were up, down, up, down and side to side, when he finally put it down. He got right on the brakes, full reverse, and spoilers up. This was the most impressive braking I've ever felt on a plane. It was more like being in a car. At this point we are still weaving like mad. Getting slower. Then I see the runway edge lights go from white, to white and yellow. "Oh" I thought, "that's the last 3rd of the runway then". We're still going 50-60 mph by this point. Then the runway edge lights go to RED. "Oh crap, thats 1000ft". Evntually we slow up, and turn left, and out of my window, what do I see through the driving rain and fog? About 50ft of runway remaining, the arrestor bed and the approach lights! We can very close to getting stuck in the sand that day, and I won't fly with that particular airline again!

Ric B.

than that, I've been pretty lucky.

[Craig.]

being stuck on a klm md11 for almost 12 hours on what was supposed to be a 10 hour flight :-/ next to a couple and the wife decided to take off her shoes and put them on her husbands lap throughout the whole flight, even during meal time, now that was terrifying.
actually seriously it would have to be a toss up between the time i was on a dc10 and there were winds of over 60mph including crosswinds and i was stuck in the middle so views out the windows were difficult, it was clouds down to about 300 feet raining like mad, and then all of a sudden got hit with  large crosswind and then a sudden thump as we hit the ground, i was not best pleased being late as it was but that was the clincher, i aint never seen so many people bounce in there seat in my life:)
the other would have to be my connecting flight out of detroit a few hours later, by that time it had gone from wind and rain to a blizzard and fog, couldnt even see the plane next to us at the gate, once we finally got to the runway i actually had a window seat, and we started the takeoff role, then about halfway down we still hadnt taken off(this was a dc9) then the engines started to die a little, we were 3/4's way down the runway by now, then one last push from the engines and we finally got into the air with less then 100 feet to spare.
i dont think i have ever came so close to soiling myself as i did then:) and just incase you havent seen detroits runways, they are long, very long

[Cherokee_6]

One time I went up to Northwest Territories to visit my brother and he his company chartered a Twin Otter to check out on of their remote sites WAY up north...

Well the weather was fogged right in so we had to fly at about 300 feet  and the wind was blowing and we were getting thrown all over the place...

Finally we came to this Lake that we were going to land on and it was really choppy water...needless to say the pilot had to get it down fast so he had the engines in reverse before we touched down and all the stall horns were blaring away...we hit pretty hard but we also stopped on a dime so I was very thankful to the pilot. (who, btw, was chuckling to himself and this was second nature to him...)

[fisharno]

I'm not sure if anybody's took the "E-Ticket" ride into Reno/Tahoe Airport, but, when the wind is blowing, the approaches get really bumpy. I've even had a pilot's-eye-view of the runway from the middle of the cabin, myself. Serious yaw!

Anyway I was just out side of work, having a smoke. We're right under the runway 34 approach, and I saw this Southwest 737 coming in from the South.
A crosswind came up and caught the plane from the right, tossed it to the left and the pilot over compensated back to the right and from where I was standing, it looked like the row of passengers on the right got a good look at the ground as the plane rolled almost 45 degrees to the right at about 1500 ft. AGL!!! Wow!

I'm sure there's some upset folks disembarking right about now.

[Tequila Sunrise]

sitting in the open door of a C-206, then looking up at the main gear  8)

[BFMF]

Once I was flying in a cessna and as we were on final to land, we were only a couple hundred feet away when another aircraft taxis onto the runway, so we quickly pulled up and did a go around

[ozzy72]

Hmm I can think of two.
One on a TWA flight from LAX to London, and being stuck between a fat woman (we are talking landmass here!) and an elderly alcoholic Irishman, and being served by a stewardess that not only had Miss Piggys personality, but looks too!
The other was ramp surfing in a Chinook (you sit on the end of the ramp, but are still attatched to the bird by a safety belt), and then the ramp goes up and down and you see who tries to cling on for dear life first. I nearly went out the back of the heli! Brown flightsuit.

Ozzy

[Rifleman]

I remember being about 16 yrs old over the the Bay of Quinte in a DH Carribou.......on take-off the windows were vibrating about an inch each way ( in and out ) from the fine pitch of the props, then climbing out with the rear loading door open........I wasn't totally impressed die to my limited knowledge of aerodynamics. More recently I was on a flight from YYZ to YVR when dinner was suspended due to some weather below us.... can you imagine looking straight out at FL 39 and seeing the tops of the CB's at the same altitude,... these were rising from the system directly under our flt path......bouncy, bouncy......things were shakin' all over in that A330.......

[Woodlouse2002]

Erm... Pretty much the same as Ozzy's. On a flight from Stornoway to Glasgow. Stuck between an aluminium wall and a big ugly wobbling landmass... Not very nice... Plus the flight was delayed 6 hours! (Actually, that was quite nice... It was due to take off at 10am but when I got up, I went outside and it was so foggy it was like being inside a lightbulb! So I thought "My flight is not going to be taking off on time today!" so I went swimming instead! ) However I did miss my connection to Bristol which was a bummer that cost me

[BHOFMX]

Prop came off our Luscombe 8E
on final hit the windshield and
right wing. Dads comment was
"Now it's going to get interesting"
and we landed

Moto is IF YOU LOSE YOUR COOL
            YOU WILL LOSE THE PLANE

Bhofmx

[Deputy]

Well, prolly my most terrifying experiance was when I was new to the job, and, I was up with a student. Now comes the scary part. Both engines started to make noises, the #2 finally failed, #1 caught fire, couldnt see from smoke, alarms going off, and, oh, nobody answering our mayday (well, they finally answered, but I was to panicked to notice. . . .)Finally, the smoke cleared, and I noticed both of us were sweating, quite heavilly.  The plane was later scrapped. The fire was caused by somebody changing oil with something other than oil. . . .

[loomex]

I have been in one of those flights that fisharno described.
Just makes you wonder if your sweating it, what the pilot is doing
Reno/Tahoe IAP (KRNO) is a great place to practice crosswind landings

[Ronnie]

My worst was coming home to Texas from the Caribbean on a Continental 737-800. I was in a window seat with this fat kid and his fat mom to my left. The fat mom listened to salsa music for the whole three hours. REALLY LOUD SALSA. I could clearly makeout every note emerging from the miniscule headphones. And the fat kid didn't exactly smell too nice.

[QUIET_ORPHAN]

I PULLED A BACKFLIP IN A CESSNA... AND TRUST ME... IT WASNT MEANT TO DO THAT

[katana_1000]

picture this:engines failing when ur over the middle of the Atlantic:Pthey re-started 5 min l8er.I was the ONLY one awake on the plane so i was the only one ot know:P