While on the topic of RL flights, what was your worst?

[JRMurray 214]

I enjoyed reading the "Chairborne's RL flights recently taken" thread. While I was reading, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to discuss the worst flights we've experienced.I'll start off with one of my worst experiences--entirely related to passengers, not the aircraft or the weather, by the way.In May, 2002, I attended a conference in San Diego. The flights to my destination--CYVR-KSEA in a Dash-8, KSEA-KSNA in a 737--were uneventful. The flights back to CYVR were ... uncomfortable.KSNA was unbelievably busy on the Sunday evening I departed, and boarding the aircraft was painfully s-l-o-w. Not only was it was so soon after 9/11 that security was extremely tight (just about everyone had to remove shoes, all documents were examined in great detail, etc., etc., etc.), but quite a number of physically challenged children--probably in the same travelling group--returning from Disneyland had to be seated. Of course, I understood both with the safety precautions and the seating situation, but I was also apprehensive because the layover between my two flights was quite tight, and the KSEA-CYVR leg was the last flight of the night. I was concerned that if I were to miss my flight, I have to wait until the next morning to fly back to Vancouver--and I still had to go to work.In any case, I finally boarded, sitting in my usual window seat beside a young man in his early 20's and an older woman beside him--probably his mother. The flight was fine, actually, until the approach to KSEA: The young guy, who up to this point had been quietly sleeping, awoke and started yelling, "We're going to crash! I know it! Something's wrong!" Nothing was, in fact, wrong, but I could see that passengers all around us were starting to get uncomfortable. The man's mother tried to calm him down but was unsuccessful. He continued along the same vein all through the approach until just after landing. She looked at me and told me that her son was not well, that he had just come out of the hospital, and that she was bringing him home. Of course, the plane landed with no problems.Relieved to find out that the distraught man and his mother were not continuing to CYVR, I now had to face my next challenge: to get to the next gate to make my KSEA-CYVR flight. I ran through the airport, reached the gate just in time, and was the last person to board the Dash 8. Making my way to my seat, I thought that I could finally relax as I sat in my window seat. However, I was sitting beside an older foreign "gentleman"--most probably from a former republic of the Soviet Union, judging by the passport he showed the flight attendant. He may have been from Bulgaria, but I don't know for sure: I couldn't make out the Cyrillic easily. Anyway, this guy reeked mightily of cigarettes, beer, and body odour--so much so that to breathe, I had to keep my head positioned away from him, pressing up against the window, for the full 40 or so minutes of the flight. Throughout the flight, he and his travelling companion across the aisle talked loudly in their language--and drank beer.So ... that was probably my worst experience--two legs of a trip back home, one with a frantic, screaming, psychologically disturbed young man, and the other with an odiferous drunk....

[Chock 17,769]

I was on a Dan Air London De Havilland Comet once (obviously a fairly long time ago). I was sat near the wing, next to an emergency exit.Up at cruise altitude over the Bay of Biscay I noticed something odd about the window on the emergency door; a tiny plastic domed screw cover just above the window frame appeared 'fuzzy'. At first I thought it was covered in velour material and that seemed odd to me because I could have sworn when I vaguely looked at it when we were on the ground it had just been plain ivory-coloured plastic (when we were on the ground I was more interested in how filthy the wing was with jet fuel stains and hadn't really paid much attention to that screw cover), so I brushed it with my finger to feel it, expecting it to be covered with a fuzzy upholstered material. That was when I found out that it was actually covered with spiky ice crystals.As I was inspecting it more closely, I noticed the emergency door almost imperceptibly move in its frame, accompanied by a deep 'clunk' noise, kind of like how a door can move in its frame at the back of your house when someone opens a door at the front and a draft blows through. Needless to say I put my seatbelt on pretty sharpish and mentioned it to the cabin crew. 'Oh it'll be alright' was the response I got.Obviously you know it was indeed alright or you would not be reading this now, but for about an hour, until we got down at Gerona in Spain, I had visions of that door blowing off. I've had a few scary ones when flying aircraft myself (such as a pair of RAF Harriers nearly colliding with my glider and flipping it with their wake turbulence), but that Comet experience with the door was the scariest thing I've ever had happen on a commercial flight when a passenger.Al

[scott967 62]

Had a couple memorable ones. Flying from KDCA to KORD on United DC-9/MD-80 type and while climbing around Martinsburg WV loud BANG around the port engine (compressor stall?). Everyone on board got quiet. Thinking, "well, now I'll know what it's like to go down". Couple minutes later, captain gets on PA and says "you might have felt a little bump back there" (Like no s--- sherlock). He assured us in his best southern good ole boy drawl that "nothing to worry about but we are going to land as precaution". Ended up going back to KDCA, but we had to fly past KIAD and I was kind of P.O.ed that we didn't just stop there.Another, again with KDCA was coming back on a NWA DC-9/MD-80 (again) KMEM-KDCA and I was on the right side. I used to fly into DCA a lot and you get used to how the approach down the Potomac into DCA 19 is done. This time I was watching out the window and we seemed really high relative to the USA Today building in Roslyn. Yup. I next saw the terminal go by as we did a go around. this was the last flight into DCA for the day and it was about 2300 (I still had a long drive home ahead of me) and I think it took 45 min to get lined up again (went out past IAD to line up again). This time I was looking up at the USA Today building as we went by (not going to miss it this time) but still started seeing the terminal go by, then BANG we were down and those reversers jammed into full.Then there was a Continental Express (makes me think of Cogan going into KBUF :( ) IIRC Dash-8 going KBTR - KIAH early evening and all I could see out the window is CBs and lightning. I really wanted out of that plane. Luckily it is a short flight.Not a flight, but was coming back from vacation on Pan Am TISX-KEWR (or might have been KJFK) and had to connect to a Pan Am commuter to get to KBWI. There was some weather making a mess of things and the Pan Am commuter company had a total schedule melt down. Hundreds of people wandering around the terminal, trying to figure out how to get where they needed to go, with no help from any agents. Or telling us "go to gate x", get there and they say, "nope, go to gate y".(Did just have a good PHNL-PHTO-PHNL flight last week so it's not all bad).scott s..

[Guest alex_m]

Went to Japan a couple of years ago. The return flight, KIX - SFO in a triple 7, had moderate to severe turbulence for about the first nine hours. FA's were told repeatedly to stop serving whatever and strap in. There was no way to relax, let alone sleep. Never got comfortable. Hard to enjoy the movies, and reading was impossible. Ugh!

[Guest Chairborne]

Kewl, JRMurray! You started a trend!I can only recall two worst flights, and they were only inconveniences. Both were to Phoenix from Seattle:* October, 2003: We took the early-morning run on a newer Alaska 737-700, direct, taking off from Runway 16R (Now 16C). The flight was silk-smooth all the way in, and we hit Runway 7L at KPHX...literally. Good descent, perfect weather...and then we went "WHAM!" onto the bars, as well as do some impressive yaw oscillations. None of the crew said anything, either apologietically or in jest. Of course, Southwest would've had fun with it.* Last Saturday, June 27: Another early-morning flight to KPHX, via KSFO, San Francisco. We took a United A320 Airsub--er, AIRBUS--and had a great flight, including a drag-race takeoff with another United A320 (We were on 1L, they 1R), keeping neck-and-neck, until we chickened out and banked left. Smooth all over the Napa Valley, bumpy over the hills but otherwise OK. There must be something about KPHX, because we landed on 26 smooth, but we had the oscillating yaw thing again. This time it was worse, almost went off the edge. And then the sudden, deafening thrill of sitting next to the thrust reversers. Joy! :( Tell ya what: I'll take the worst flight anyday over the best Greyhound trip. Fewer voluminous, vulgar-mouthed, freshly-released prisoners on board, and people flying on planes tend to bathe before their excursions, unlike on the bus. GAG!

[Tim_Capps 474]

I flew with Navy pilots in the JAG corps, young kids, really. I was on a DC9 that descended so precipitously toward Khania, Crete, that everything started sliding toward the floward bulkhead. (Sounds like some of my flight sim descents.) That was odd. Another time fire trucks raced alongside down the runway when we landed... never did figure out what that was about. I always admired how self-sufficient the DC-9s were. We'd just sit on our bags at the end of some semi-deserted airport runway, and here would come the DC-9, stopping for us like a schoolbus, then haul up the airstairs and take off again. Another really strange Navy flight was over Spain. The pilot told us they had too much fuel, and had received permission to fly at low altitude to burn it off, to make his landing weight, I guess. So from Rota to wherever it was I was going -- maybe Valencia -- was at very low altitude. A wonderful way to see a good part of Spanish countryside.The absolute most surreal flight was aboard a colorful Hawaiian Airlines DC-8 from Sigonella, Sicily to Bahrain. What a wonderful old airplane. The Hawaiian shirts of the flight attendants contrasted oddly with the desert camo and M16s of the passengers.

[n4gix 4,949]

My worst flight was a return from Orlando, FL to KMDW in a Southwest 737 about five years ago during winter...Lot's of snow cover, runway 31C had been plowed, but the a/c floated in ground effect several hundred past the 4R/22L intersection......finally -bump- as the wheels finally hit the runway, reversers howling, brakes hard, a/c finally comes to a full stop a few feet short of the overrun. Pilot had to use reverse thrust to gain enough clearance to make the turnoff onto the last taxiway... :(