"Interesting" flights...

[Citationpilot]

I've never had anything bad happen to me onboard an airliner, but could write a book on the the emergencies and problems that have arisen in my general aviation flying.

[congo]

I was on an Piper Navajo air ambulance and the sky was an evil storm in our flightpath. We hit the cloud within a few minutes as we climbed and I informed the crew that we shouldn't climb over 6000' in my physical condition because I may start to brain bleed.

We leveled out in the storm at 6000 feet and it was extremely rough, the crew commented in was the roughest in all their careers. The Navajo was being tortured.

During this time, the ambulance officer/crew was visibly shaking and reassuring me we were ok and that the Navajo was a tough plane, the pilot looked worried. The ambulance officer was trying to get my details on paper hurriedly as they had no paperwork on me, so, I guess if we crashed the rescuers would know who I was...... and it gave him something to do as he was obviously scared.

I could see the weather radar screen and asked the pilot what the coloured blotches were and he said they were intense cells. Rapidly, the cells were getting thicker and then the whole screen just went that colour.
Seconds later, we were stalling and falling, caught in an incredible downburst with the pilot pushing hard on the control column and throttle!

It seemed to take forever to recover from that stall, once in a near vertical dive, I saw the ASI starting to read again and we did a long pullout just several hundred feet above the hills below. We fell 4000 feet in the downburst.

I knew from that moment I would never fear another plane ride as much and starting taking flying lessons within a year.

It was pretty cool actually, but I wouldn't like to do it again.

--------------------------

When I was young, I was in a DC-8 over the Pacific and

[born_2_fly]

I was once on a A321 going to Lyon. Obviously when the pilot extends the flaps you feel a slight drop, but I think that on this flight it was coupled with a strong head wind (also I think he extended two stages of flap by accident, after this he retracted another stage) It felt like we dropped about 100ft just vertically downward!

[Ivan]

Not too much interesting stuf  in my life but...

My father flew on a Soviet Airforce An-12 in the 70's, from Erevan to Moscow. This flight wasn't in the travel plan though but there was some kind of epidemic in that area and they didn't want foreigners up there.

[gryshnak]

Many years ago, when I was single and living in Australia, I would go to the USA with a few friends for 4-6 weeks every winter and miss the worst of the Oz rainfall.  We normally flew whichever airline was the cheapest.

Halfway across the ocean, bored out of my skull (it's a long flight from Australia to anywhere else), I go to the toilet.  The door is a concertina affair with a central handle that engages a latch at the top, the side, and the bottom when you close it.

So, ready to go back to my seat a few minutes later, I turn the handle and open the door - except it won't open.  I try it again, the latch at the top of the door won't release.  I open and close the latch several more times, it's stuck fast.  So I press the button to summon the attendant.  Some young fellow arrives and I get the door open half an inch at the bottom to explain the problem to him.  He advises me to stay calm, and not to worry, and they'll get me out of there right away - I tell him I'm fine, it's not as if I was going anywhere anyway (and to be honest, 10 hours into the flight, sitting on the toilet is more comfortable than the seat I'm going back to).

The attendant comes back a couple of minutes later and says he'll have to force the door open.  I say okay, go ahead.  So he tells me to stand well back from the door, which is very witty of him but probably unintentional (if you've never been in an economy class airline toilet, they're smaller than phone boxes).  After a few minutes of kicking and bashing, the break the top latch and let me out.  I assure them I'm fine, thank them for their efforts, and explain this has at least provided a bit of excitement.  As I go back to my seat, the young attendant is looking at the broken door and wondering out loud how on earth he's going to explain this to the maintenance guys once we reach LAX.

Gryshnak  ;D

[mostickity]

I cant even remember how many times I've flown, and I've had a number of cool and scary times on a plane. But my most memorable was when I was flying alone in 2004. We were on our way Into land KIAH (houston). The captain put on the seatbelt light and we were about 20 minutes out and well in simple terms, I HAD TO POO. and I mean really bad! I didn't care about the seatbelt lights, I got out of my seat and ran to the back of the 737-800 as fast as a could which was only 5 rows away  ::) Suprizingly nobody came and knocked on the lavatory door  :) which took ALOT of pressure off of me. I was mostly worried about hitting an air pocket or hitting a deer on the runway or sumthing  ;D which wouldnt be good I suppose.