Your Worst Flights (Turbulence, other pax, etc...)

[RDU-JFK]

1. Flying SBA-DEN on an F9 E190. We had to hold over Durango for about 20 minutes due to storms in DEN and almost had to divert to SLC but a window opened up in the storms so the captain told us it would be a rough arrival. One of the roughest descents I've ever experienced. I was so glad to touch down in DEN; I was pretty green. Taking the train to the main terminal I noticed a lot of pale/green passengers coming off other flights who acknowledged the rough approach!
2. Flying ICN-LAX on a KE 777-300. Hit about 45 minutes of rough air over the Pacific just below the Aleutian Islands. I was a bit scared given how constant and rough it got; a few big dips. Having it occur in the evening over the Pacific didn't help matters!
3. Flying LGA-MDW on an ATA 737-800. Was in an aisle seat next to a woman with a screaming newborn. Completely full flight and the baby wouldn't stop!! Had a massive migraine upon arrival in Chicago.
4. Flying LAX-JFK redeye on a DL 757-200 (ex-TWA). The ones with the exit rows by the doors with no overhead bins by this row. Preboarding these two women from NJ cut in front of the Elites who were patiently waiting; they claimed to have a disability. Then I noticed they had exit seats. So I tell the gate agent "I thought people with physical handicaps should not be given an exit row?". These women heard me and began to curse me out in the jetway. They also hogged the overhead bins with large bags and shoved my duffel all the way in the back! All the time they were still cursing me out but I just kept my mouth shut and acted civilized! I was so glad to get to JFK and away from those hogs. Overhead bin space is a common problem on DL 757s ex-TWA especially if you are in the exit row.

What are your war stories?

[yankees368]

My worst flight was detailed in this thread: http://nycaviation.com/forum/threads...-gt-JFK-gt-LGA

Long story short, boarded a DL MD-88 to LGA at DTW, pilots seat broke so I transferred to a another flight to LGA departing almost at the same time, also an MD-88. Flight was absolutely packed. Because of our late departure, we got caught up in a monster storm in the NYC area. I have never been on such a turbulent flight. To top it off, we had a lightning strike about half way to LGA. Scared the crap out of everyone! That landing at LGA was scary, lets just say that.

The second worst flight I had was a short hop from BUF to JFK on jetblue. Another very long story short, several missed ATC takeoff windows because of icing on the plane and ground holds. 45 minute flight turned into an 8 hour deal. Here is a pic of Blue 100 which I spent the entire day on and around.

[moose135]

Two stories...

When I worked at Newsday, we would regularly visit a big ad agency near Chicago - I'd go out with one or two sales reps every couple of months. We would take a 7am SWA flight out of ISP to MDW, meet two or three client teams, then fly home that evening. One time, I go out with a fairly new sales rep, we have our meetings, and head back to MDW. Our flight was supposed to leave around 6pm, but our meetings ended early, so we were at the airport before 3pm. I suggested we have something to eat (Harry Caray's in the terminal is always a good stop) then catch our flight. The sales rep saw there was a 4pm flight, and whined about trying to get it, so he could get home earlier (he was newly married). We were able to change our reservation to the earlier flight, but of course, now we're in the C (cattle...) boarding category. As we are waiting near the end of the line to board, a huge thunderstorm comes over the field - all the rampers get pulled inside, and the rain was so heavy, I couldn't see the airplane at the jetway! After a 30 minute delay, we board - and get stuck in middle seats. Once we were ready to taxi, the captain came on and announced that the winds from the storm had bent the access panel that covers the external power plug, and they couldn't get it closed. That resulted in a 45 minute delay, while mechanics came and fixed the door. Now, we're ready to go. Except that the line of storms that had passed through were now between Chicago and New York, and ATC was holding all flights east. We sat on the plane for another hour, waiting for clearance. Of course, we were buttoned up, and away from the gate, so we couldn't do much but sit there. We finally get cleared to depart, and had an uneventful flight to ISP. When I got home, I checked FlightAware, and found that the flight we were originally booked on arrived at ISP 15 minutes after we did.

Back when I was flying the KC-135, we had the "flight from hell". It was mid-December, we flew our scheduled mission, refueling and a navigation leg, then headed home to Grissom AFB, Indiana (KGUS). I was flying co-pilot from the jumpseat and my aircraft commander was trying to upgrade to instructor pilot (only she was truly scary to fly with) She was in the right seat, the Instructor Pilot was in the left. We get to KGUS, but weather was below minimums, and we diverted to KI Sawyer AFB, on the upper peninsula of Michigan. We took on some fuel, and checked the weather. I saw no way we were going to get into KGUS that day, and the weather was heading downhill at Sawyer, but I got outvoted (2 Majors vs 1 LT...) and off we went. Sure enough, weather at Grissom hasn't improved any, so we return to Sawyer. By now it's like 9 pm, it's dark, snowing, blowing snow, fog, and we're 14 hours and 2 wx diverts into our day. We went missed approach on our first try at the ILS, and on our second approach, we're near decision height, looking for the runway. As we dropped below decision height, one of the pilots said "There are some lights, I *think* I see the runway". Well, from my seat, all I saw were the strobes (dimly) and lots of blowing snow, but no runway. Since I didn't want to die that night, I got on the intercom, and in my best command voice said "GO AROUND". They did, we spent the night at Minot AFB, ND, and flew home to Indiana the next day.

[megatop412]

Easy- Eastern DC-9, LGA-MCO, sometime in the mid 1980's. The worst turbulence I've ever flown through as we made our way through a line of thunderstorms approaching MCO. Many of the pax(including my brother) vomiting. I got real close there for a few minutes before we stabilized on finals. Boy was I happy to see Micky Mouse and Donald Duck. Stangely though, it didn't make me afraid to fly(USAir 427 took care of that)

[Mateo]

I've boarded a commercial aircraft approximately 110 times. I've boarded a GA aircraft approximately 200 times. After every one of those landings, I've arrived at my final destination safe and uninjured. Don't think I can reasonably call any of those flights bad, let alone my "worst."

[lijk604]

1989 - Piedmont, B737-200, Myrtle Beach to NY. Flight was one of two dailys they operated, luckily we were booked on the morning flight due to approaching weather. Inbound though, was 2 hours late due to said weather, and when it finally did arrive, so did the storm. Severe thunderstorm, with hail....which damaged the aircraft. Wound up having to wait for a replacement, which was coincidentally, the evening arrival. The flight was fine, however, the 9 hours in the terminal waiting was probably the worst I've had it in my many years of traveling.

If you want a good baby/child tale? jetBlue in 2006, JFK-MCO, a mom, infant & 5 year old wind up sitting behind my wife & I on the aircraft. She got "lucky" and had the crying baby behind her for most of the flight...me, I had the 5 year old kick the back of the seat from the time he sat down until the time we blocked in at MCO. The mom, said, sorry can't do anything about it, he's a kid.

[Derf]

I have you all beat hands down but I do not want to end the thread so I will wait! Give me your best shot... It will fall short of this target!

[moose135]

The mom, said, sorry can't do anything about it, he's a kid.

Duct tape works wonders...

[hiss srq]

August 14th, 1996.. Delta 727-200Adv. LGA-TPA Operating as flight 801. This was a few days shy of 1 month since TWA 800 went down of which I was well aware of being the aviation junkee I was already. We take off out of LGA on 13 make the right, start the left and hear a loud pop followed by a noticeable reduction in power for a few moments. After that it felt like some power came back. We continue climbing for about another minute or so and start making a sweeping right turn headded south bound for Nassau County. The Captain comes on and explains that we have just experinced what is called a compressor stall from our number two engine. With that, he announces that we will be headding out over the Atlantic to dump 15K of fuel before diverting to JFK. So, we make circles off the coast for a while dumping fuel which I can clearly see from 15F. Finally we come in and land on 13R at JFK and are met with fire trucks to examine the engine. Later on they find a sub aircraft and we taxi out to depart on 31L after dark. At that point I fell asleep and didn't wake up until we were over what I would guess was Brookville, Florida on the way into TPA. When we landed there were a few cameras around. The next day we found out in the local paper that a few peices of the engine had actually been spat out the back end and landed on a Port Authority employees truck.

Additionally to that, trying to get home from MCO on the afternoon of the Valentines day blizzard. By the grace of God and Delta, I got the last avialable first class seat on a 738 to JFK that night thanks to one Justin Idle.

[jerslice]

That's an easy one for me: it was a small sightseeing plane flight around the Big Island of Hawaii. I can't recall the airline but we left out of Kona in what I remember being a Cessna Caravan. They placed me in the very back of the plane...nearly stuff into the tail I thought. It was a rainy day with a light wind in Kona, but once we were airborne the motion quickly started getting to me. I started falling asleep about 20 minutes in, which was making me feel better. Then we hit the windy side of the island and within 30 seconds I was reaching for the barfbag. I somehow managed to incorrectly deploy the bag (yeah, I know) and I threw up my breakfast of CornPops all over the seatback and myself. And I mean all of my breakfast - it was an epic amount of vomit. Just as I was recovering, round two got underway and I threw up even more (I wasn't aware I had anymore to give)...and again missed the bag and it went all over myself this time.
With excessive amounts of vomit now sloshing about the floor, others in the plane were beginning to become overcome by the fumes of my breakfast returned. My mother was next to go...also missing the bag. My sister followed suit 5 minutes later...in the bag...followed by myself for a third time, followed by another passenger after that. Followed again by me...finally in the bag. My dad was laughing his ass off though admited later the fumes almost pushed him over the edge.
Finally at this point I see the runway for Kona in sight and I am HAPPY. I saw a 737, later discovered it was an Aloha 732, depart ahead of us and thought that was super cool. As we came up over the runway it started getting really bumpy, and we started crabbing super heavily (I was looking straight down the runway out the pilot side windows). Suddenly I felt the plane dropping quickly, in an uncommanded sort of way, heard the pilot yell "****" and heard the stall warning go off (a sound I was familiar with from my then obsession with FS's). We pulled a last minute go-around and came down 10 minutes later with no incident - except for myself, mom, and sister hurling again.
When we got off the plane the bottoms of our shoes were covered in a light coat of vomit...and I raced off to the bathroom, passing the folks scheduled for the next flight - who looked absolutely terrified to get on board next. One of the staff members walks out to the plane with a thing of paper towels, and the pilot stops and says "that ain't gonna cut it, we're going to need some towels...and some industrial grade bleach..."

[cancidas]

I have you all beat hands down but I do not want to end the thread so I will wait! Give me your best shot... It will fall short of this target!

VIP flights at Rucker.



...but i can't wait to hear Fred's!

[Derf]

My story is not a great story, but short of an airplane crash, this will top all others (Maybe tie Jeremy's, that is a kick ass horror story). I have had nightmares about this flight.... And I am sorry to say Tommy, it was TWA!

[Matt Molnar]

With excessive amounts of vomit now sloshing about the floor, others in the plane were beginning to become overcome by the fumes of my breakfast returned. My mother was next to go...also missing the bag. My sister followed suit 5 minutes later...in the bag...followed by myself for a third time, followed by another passenger after that. Followed again by me...finally in the bag. My dad was laughing his ass off though admited later the fumes almost pushed him over the edge.

[Derf]

JESUS!!! I JUST SPIT COFFEE ACROSS THE ROOM! IT WAS THE SAME COLOR TOO! ahahahah Oh My GOD that is some funny stuff right there!

[Matt Molnar]

Great timing for this thread, or for this story, depending on which way you look at it:

Drunk Passenger Uses 11-Year-Old Girl as Urinal While Another Man Pukes on Grossest JetBlue Flight Ever