This one is about a broken plane that was flown, but shouldn't have been flown.

STL-Nashville on a TWA DC-9 summer 1998---
Sitting across the aisle from me was a concerned lady sitting next to an emergency exit. Even before she called for a flight attendent I knew what her concern was... I could hear it. There was a "swooshing" sound (an air leak) coming from the emergency exit door. So the woman immediately contacted the female flight attendant. The flight attendant told the woman that she'd speak to the pilot about the problem.

Due to the usual STL delay when thunderstorms are present, the flight attendant took her time in the cockpit. Considering that there was a obvious delay, surely the flight attendent would report the problem and the captain would return the elderly DC-9 to the gate and passengers would board another plane. No such luck. About 20 minutes later, the flight attendent said "that's (the sound) normal" and our flight gradually proceeded to the runway. (the neglect of the leaky emergency exit was probably due to the fact the flight was delayed more than 2hrs due to the t-storms and at the time, TWA was pushing for better on-time performance last year so that they could boast about themselves)

Upon take-off the swooshing sound became ever more noticable. When the female passenger contacted the flight attendent about the even more obvious noise, the TWA flight attendant purposely snubbed the female passenger and ignored the female passenger outcry.

For the duration of the hour flight, the woman maintained her body pressed upon the door. Thankfully, the door did not fly off or come open.

Was I relieved when we safely touched down in Nashville!!

As a side note, there were only 2 TWA attendants aboard the 2-class DC-9; as I left the plane in Nashville I overheard the male flight attendant say "Geez. I hope there weren't any 1st class passengers."
We in coach got beverage service while first class passengers didn't-- there wasn't any flight attendent in 1st class. I believe all skimping was due to Southwest flying the STL-Nashville route and hurting TWA's profits on the route.

This experience, and others aboard TWA makes me think that T.W.A. stands Trouble With Aircraft.