"Interesting" flights...

[Indigojones]

I'm just looking to hear some stories.
It would be interesting to hear of flights (i'm talking commercial ones, with you taking up a seat in the back) where things have been out of the ordinary, be it spectacular turbulence, in-flight emergency, or stuff like obnoxious fellow passengers and horrible flight attendants.

So let's open up, and share.

I've had a fair share of interesting experiences.
When I was about 8 (so in about 1990), we were flying BAto Boston, crusing about the mid-atlantic, when all of a sudden a pre-recorded message comes on telling us that there has been a drop in cabin pressure and instructing us to put on our oxygen masks. Funnily enough, only about half of  the oxygen masks came down and everybody just froze cos there was nothing wrong. About a minute later the captain comes on and appologises, says it's just an electrical fault. The stewardesses come round and put the masks up again. 10 minutes later it happens again, this time without the recorded message. Nobody bats an eyelid and a couple of people just laugh. It was a fun flight from then on.

Any other stories? I've got more....

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

I had a flight on a Domestic Airline....Half-way thru the 3.5 hours flight, this dude sitting next to me has had so much of alcohol, that his head lopsides and flaps straight onto my shoulder...I was damn angry at the dude...felt like slapping the guy on the face...but I was worried more if he threw up on me...in the end, I was switched to another seat by the window...(Hurrah!!)....I was flying alone at that time at the age of 12...love flying

[Indigojones]

(Hurrah!!)....I was flying alone at that time at the age of 12...love flying

I don't know what they do in the states, but when I flew alone under the age of 11 (I think) they stick this placard around your neck saying "unaccompanied minor" and you get treated like a delicate package by everyone around you. It's nice when you're young and genuinely a bit afraid, not so great when you're older and starting to feel a bit of independence.

[VVM]

i was on flight to florida about 6-8 yrs ago, and i was only about 12 at the time.  anyway, i to put my seat back and the woman behind me kept pushing it back forward.  she did this about 5 times so my dad got up and asked her what she was doing, and she said i had no right to put my seat back because i had not paid an adult price!!! (which i had btw, im pretty sure you an adult at 10yrs on some airlines), and my dad went mental the stewardess told him to sit down, and he stomed off to the back of the plane for about 45 mins.  i got to put my seat back btw.  another short one, flight back from florida 2 years ago and the turbulence was so bad even the cabin crew had to sit down.  lasted about 45 mins.

[Indigojones]

flight back from florida 2 years ago and the turbulence was so bad even the cabin crew had to sit down.  lasted about 45 mins.

At Christmas I usually go over to Rochester, NY. So I fly on "the big jet plane" from Gatwick to Newark, then catch a dinky little Continental Express or Delta Connection Embraer up to Rochester, and the flights are just constantly bumpy, I mean there is not a moment where you're not being rocked about. Despite this, the one member of cabin crew will carry on as usual, just dishing out the pretzels and Coke.

Now that I think of it, one of those flights also had an aborted take-off, something to do with a thrust reverser malfunction. So we taxied off the runway at Newark with a fire engine behind us! 2 hours later we were bumping along as usual.

I flew once from Dublin to Heathrow on Aer Lingus, again I was quite young and on my own, everything seemed normal, the cabin crew was getting the drinks round down quickly, not a spot of shaking. The stewardess is a few rows in front, pouring some juice into a cup for somebody, when this almightly THUMP comes from nowhere and the juice ended up splattered on the roof.

[Craig.]

had several interesting experiences. The DC10 flight into detroit with very bad winds, it was so bad the terminal roof was being torn off. Then later that night leaving detroit the wind and rain was replaced by snow, a blizzard infact, it was soo bad there was over 2 feet of snow in only a couple of hours. That was quite a rough take off.

[BFMF]

When I was being shipped out for Basic Training, I had a lay over in Denver, where we switched over to a CRJ 200 aircraft.  Everything was going well untill we were going down the runway for our take off run. The pilot put the engines in reverse and hit the brakes. We taxied off the runway, and a few minutes later, the captain told us what had happened. I can't remember what exactly happened, but it was either a door handle opened, or some sort of sensor had detected it coming unlocked. Anyway, they checked it out, and we were back in the air a half hour later.

Kind of scary on my 2nd commercial flight in my life, so I wasn't sure what was happening at the time...

[beefhole]

I don't know what they do in the states, but when I flew alone under the age of 11 (I think) they stick this placard around your neck saying "unaccompanied minor" and you get treated like a delicate package by everyone around you.

I've been flying by myself since I was 7 (mind you not as PIC until I was 16) and I never got any such placard!  >:(

Some people may remember me sharing this story before-I was flying back from Orlando direct to Philly.  After a half hour delay because of a freak tstorm in MCO we're off. (I fly for Delta virtual, which means I'm in and out of Florida almost constantly, and let me tell you Florida has the wierdest frickin weather from minute to minute I've ever seen...)

No sooner are we in the air than does the guy directly behind me (I had an aisle seat ) remove his shoes and rest his frickin bare feet right underneath my armrest :-/  What's funny is that I immediately thought, for no apparent reason, that this guy was Italian (I believe he was)

Flying with a friend of mine from Denver back to Philly after a vacation in Aspen, I had to hold the hand of a woman on takeoff-she was trembling really bad.  

Come to think of it, in all my time of flying by myself, I've never had any real major events happen.

[TacitBlue]

The closest thing to an interesting flight that I've ever had was last year on my way to Oshkosh. It wasn't so much interesting as it was just weird. On the leg from MKE to Appleton (don't remember the ID code) we had to fly within a layer of clouds for a couple of minutes. This was in a Beechcraft 1900, so it was pretty bumpy. After I realized that this was going to last a while I thought "oh crap, people are going to start freaking out", but they didn't. I looked around and everyone was laughing and having fun. It just struck me as odd.

[Mobius]

I was flying from San Antonio to Dallas this fall, and as we were descending through probably 8,000 feet, and I was watching out the window, and all of the sudden, I saw something yellow and there was a regular yellow balloon that went by the window at 300 mph.  I always wondered what would happen when those balloons get that high, and now I know.

[beaky]

Heard a loud "bang!" during takeoff roll my very first time in the air (DC10; NYC to SF; 1978)... turned out to be "nothing", but it sure scared the bejeezus out of me!

Probably the most interesting flight, though, was on my way back from DFW to EWR (by way of Atlanta, of course just a few years ago... seat next to mine was occupied by a very attractive, flirtatious, extremely young lady (barely legal, you might say)... my "better judgement" prevailed, but looking back, I regret not going for it.
My typical passenger interaction is either with some brat behind me kicking my seat or some jerk next to me with an iPod turned up so loud I can hear every tinny, screechy note... grrrr... I hate flying commercial...!!

[eno]

I've never had anything interesting happen whilst in the air, apart from one stroppy passenger who was handled brilliantly by the smallest flight attendant on the aircraft.

However I had a rather interesting time at Toronto waiting to  leave. I was traveling back to the UK on an Air Transat  A330 (Incidentaly 12 months later the same aircraft ran out of fuel and glided to the Azores.) We were about to be pushed back when the Captain announced that there was a problem and there would be a slight delay. (GROAN). An hour later we were pushed back ...... only to be told that during pushback the fault had reoccoured, we were towed to a ramp area. The flight attendents started to open doors and hand out water as it was rather hot. We heard nothing for over an hour untill the Captain announced that the fault hadn't been fixed, even after the offending valve on the landing gear had been replaced. (BIGGER GROANS).

I was unconcerned. However the guy behind me started to complain rather vociferously. By this time I was becomming rather irritated, not by the delay or the fact that they couldn't allow us off the plane, but by the lack of information from the flight deck as to how long we were going to be delayed and the nature of the delay. I asked one of the attendants if she could get an update. A few minutes later the Captain apologised for the lack of information and gave us a full account of what was happening. In short, faulty gear valve, replacement valve fitted,  old valve to workshop to be tested, new valve showing as faulty, checking electrics.
The guy behind went mental ....... I went mental at him  as he was saying that we should be  nearly half way home. He shut up when I pointed out that we could well be half way home, but when we got there we might not be able to land or, have to crash land because of a fault with the landing gear. Even worse would be a gear failure on the runway during take off.
After my request for more information we got updated every 10 minutes or so. The fault turned out to be electrical,  neither of the valves was faulty..... we took off 3 hours late.

The flight was uneventful.

[Chris_F]

Flying in to Puerto Rico, we were at around 3,000-5,000 feet or so.  The aircraft dropped suddenly, probably at about a half G or so (not quite lifted out of the seat but close), as if caught in a downdraft.  No big deal as initially it felt like turbulance.  But it lasted FAR too long.  Just as the passengers started to scream and panic the plane recovered and we landed without incident.  Don't know how common that is, but it's the only time I'd ever experienced it.

[Alphajet_Enthusiast]

Yes, I actually have still a mail I sent to my brother shortly after the flight.

I was flying jumpseat in an Airbus A330-300 OO-SFO.

Forgive me if some of the terminology or observations I made on the avionics are wrong, I was 15-16 at the time.  ;)

[i] Ooooh!! ANother cool thing:
We had a problem with the autothrottle!!

At startup the right engine engine was giving less thrust and it took roughly 4 minutes Before the engine stabilised. The pilot told me "c'est probablement la lattitude". During the flight we had an overheat of the right pack and had to fly without for a while as it cooled down. This was very fun:

-Captain Maes switched on AP1 and then the autothrottle. the words AUTOTHROTTLE would appear on the PFD, then flash and extinguish. Then the autothrottle would shut down. Maes then engaged AP2 and tried the same procedure, with the same results. So he had to control throttle manually throughout tyhe flight. It was so cool, during descent the plane would do everything and he would just do the throttle so beautifully!!!!!

Also, it was cool because when A/T wasnt engaging him and the F/O got out the abnormal checklists and even phoned the SN Technical center through the intercom.

The taxiing was soooo awesome!!!! You get swinged in your seat so nicely, sidewards G's man! . When taxying in brussels I saw Thomas Cook, a Virgin Express on the taxiway before us and sooo many other aircraft including the AN-124. I am soooo pissed off that I didnt have the camera with me because I could have gotten suuuch nice photso from the cockpit, eg over the pyrenees, BReaking through 2 layers of clouds, etc. etc.

Some information about the flight that they gave me on a sheet:

Flight n

[elite marksman]

How exactly does one convince the Captian to allow you on the flight deck while in flight?