Our Worst Flight...

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Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 920

Thinking of KLM's 767s this morning has brought back memories of my worst flight back in 2003; a flight from Newark to Amsterdam.

As a reminder - here is what I thought of the trip at the time:

KL658 – New York Newark – Amsterdam – KLM Boeing 767-300 (PH-BZD)

This was a flight from hell and out of my 70+ flights in my lifetime, this is one I will never forget.

We arrived at the airport early at 1.30pm (for a 4.30 departure) and arrived in time to see the 767 arrive early from Amsterdam. We had a great view at the gate of the aircraft and the two runways, so I was happy just to sit and watch the goings on. About one hour before departure, mechanics arrived and started looking at the right engine, opening the covers and pointing torches inside. An hour later, the engine was in bits and four guys, under flood lights, were working away on ‘some problem’. At the same time, the despatcher announced a half hour delay due to a maintenance problem.

Well, half an hour turned into 5 hours. The pilot was hanging out of the window looking at the work, giving thumbs up and down signs to the mechanics as several engine tests were performed. Smoke bellowed out of the engine on several occasions and my stomach started to churn. At the 5 hour mark, the pilot hung out of the ****-pit, gave a thumbs up to the passengers, and waved everyone on board at which point a cheer emerged from the gate.

Now all logic tells me a plane will not take off if there is a problem, but that doesn’t stop you worrying. I half expected the engine to blow on take off, but fortunately, nothing happened. The pilot explained the problem as being a broken gasket which had subsequently caused a leak. Anyway, with a fantastic night time view of the New York skyline, we took off we were at last on our way home.

About an hour into the flight, we experienced some heavy turbulence. The seat belt signs came on and the turbulence gradually got worse. The plane was going up, down, side to side, with the wings at times almost going vertical. It was a rollercoaster of a ride and you could actually hear the wind howling. The plane creaked around violently for over 2 hours. The travel sickness bags were out and everyone sat in silence. I have never been scared on a plane before; I was petrified though. I clung onto my seat desperately until my wife asked for more travel sick tablets. After no help came from the stewardess, I ignored the seat belt sign and unbuckled and went to an overhead locker to get them. I knew I shouldn’t have done in those conditions, but my wife was ready to throw and felt I had to risk it. I managed it without anything falling out.

After around two hours, the situation eased and normal service was resumed. The pilot explained that the cause was the strong jet stream. He’d been in touch with other aircraft and they all were experiencing the same thing, so there was nothing he could do.

5 hours late, a nervous take off, a flight from hell and the knowledge of a missed connection later, we arrived in Amsterdam physically unscathed but mentally with the thought, “do I really like flying?”.

Whilst all logic tells me I shouldn't be apprehensive about situations like this, when you're up there and living it, you feel like you're in the middle of no-where, no-one else is experiencing it and that if things get any worse, you're almost certainly doomed.

The point of this thread is to hear what your worst flying experience was, and how this has affecting your view of flying since?

Look forward to reading your thoughts. :)

Original post

Member for

20 years 1 month

Posts: 4,255

Turbulence is something you can't ignore, and it is a terrifying experience. I got severe turbulence over Belgium when i flew Cologne-Gatwick with Germanwings last year. For the 1st time ever whilst flying, i felt scared.

Also i've had severe turbulence over the Atlantic, on our way home to MAN from ORD in 1997, turbulence in the dark = not nice!

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 920

It is a strange fact that any unpleasant flying experience is exagerrated during the hours of darkness. My KLM flight was an overnight flight which I'm sure made things feel worse than they actually were.

Member for

19 years 7 months

Posts: 862

I was finishing off my night qualification in a PA-38 tomahawk, flying back from PIK to GLA after doing 5 full stop landings. Flying up the west coast at 2500' 90 kts, everything going well, heading for Millport before I enter GLA's zone for a straight in approach to 05, when we started to climb to 3000' in an up draught I though oopps what's going on here?

I couldn't see any cloud formations due to it being dark, plus there wasn't any CB action forecast - then we started getting thrown about, my head was bouncing off of the ceiling, and that was the first time I've thought about putting a plane down in a precautionary landing, but I just kept the speed within rough air limit. We had to turn right and cross a range of hills that were about 1800', as we were doing this we entered the down draught. We had full power on, a climbing attitude, and were still losing 50-75 fpm when I looked down all I could see was the top of clouds but I knew just below them was the tips of some hills!

After contacting GLA to let them know of our situation things started to settle down and we were at 2200' - phew. We continued onto GLA and landed, but it did get me thinking about how safe flying in a single with hardly any power at night is? However next night I went up solo - just to make sure it never spooked me too much.

dme

Member for

20 years 5 months

Posts: 10,625

I was finishing off my night qualification in a PA-38 tomahawk, flying back from PIK to GLA after doing 5 full stop landings. Flying up the west coast at 2500' 90 kts, everything going well, heading for Millport before I enter GLA's zone for a straight in approach to 05, when we started to climb to 3000' in an up draught I though oopps what's going on here?

I couldn't see any cloud formations due to it being dark, plus there wasn't any CB action forecast - then we started getting thrown about, my head was bouncing off of the ceiling, and that was the first time I've thought about putting a plane down in a precautionary landing, but I just kept the speed within rough air limit. We had to turn right and cross a range of hills that were about 1800', as we were doing this we entered the down draught. We had full power on, a climbing attitude, and were still losing 50-75 fpm when I looked down all I could see was the top of clouds but I knew just below them was the tips of some hills!

After contacting GLA to let them know of our situation things started to settle down and we were at 2200' - phew. We continued onto GLA and landed, but it did get me thinking about how safe flying in a single with hardly any power at night is? However next night I went up solo - just to make sure it never spooked me too much.

dme


Well, the fact you lived to tell about it proves you;ve got a level head :)

I'd fly with ya anyday ;)

Member for

21 years 1 month

Posts: 1,029

my worse flgiht was also turbulence related. Myself and other group members were on an Aerolineas Argentinas B737 (LV-JMY 6/11/96) from Asuncsion in Paraguay to Buenos Aires. Took off mid pm for us to catch the flight back to London via Madrid. All was going well until top of descent into some dark clouds and some gentle bumps. As we got lower the tubulence got steadily worse until one sickening drop which had any loose items thrown up to the cabin roof. This included a passengers briefcase that 'hovered' in mid air for what seemed like ages but was probably only a few seconds. Also included a passeger whose seatbelt had broken but luckily he was not injured. My trouser leg was torn by the seat in front of me as it had a sharp edge to its frame and on looking found a small cut to my leg. As we continued the roller coaster I could see the ground through gaps in the cloud. At BA (at the time) the procedure was to join overhead and then route to whichever runway was in use and as we flew over the airport I knew it would not be much longer before we landed.
As we turned finals we could see the burnt out wreckage of an aircraft that had crashed a couple of weeks earlier. I was sat on the right side behind the wing and had a good view of the runway lights on account of the drift angle being used. This was kicked off at the last moment and we made a very smooth touchdown but could certainly feel the aircraft slipping/skidding on the very wet runway. Fellow pax applauded as we turned off the runway so we did the same.
We got off the plane and headed for a bar as a drink was very necessary ! before getting on the next plane a few hours later.
As we were sat in the departure area a MD11 landed and something did not look quite right - it was very fast and landed a long way down the runway. Shortly afterwards we could see a lot of red lights heading that way as the MD11 had run off the runway as it as turning off.

Have had many flights since then but none have come that close in terms of the violence of the turbulence we were in.