Worst turbulence experience?
 

I know this isn't "Aeroplan" specific, but, as I was flying home last night and dodging thunderstorms and sitting in a pattern for an hour, I was thinking... I wonder what the worst turbulence people on Flyertalk have experienced?

This wasn't by far my worst experience... My worst was January 2009 YYC-YEG in a Dash-8 ahead of a snow storm. This was the only time I thought I was going to die on an airplane. I think about 6-7 people lost their lunch on the flight and things were defiantly being tossed around the cabin. The best part was, the pilot came on near the end of the flight and said "Ladies and Gentleman, as you can see it's a pretty rough ride up to Edmonton tonight. I have good news and bad news. The good news is, we are about 15 minutes out... The bad news is, if we don't beat this storm we are going to have to turn around and go back to Calgary".

With that my heart sunk! NO WAY I could go through that again for another 40 mins.. We landed safely in Edmonton and the drive home in that storm was terrifying as well.. :D

That was probably my only experience with MOD-SEV turbulence...

This was not a commercial ride but a military flight

I was based in Greenwood NS and the rig The Ocean Ranger had capsized in severe weather.

We were flying a mission looking for survivors. I had volunteered to be a spotter. We were very low looking for rafts or anything that could help us find survivors. The turbulence was awful... barf bags were used ad nauseum. I was flying with a very experienced crew and I remember the captain commenting that this was the worst he had experienced in 20 some years of flying anti-submarine and fishing patrols which are often flown at low altitudes

I was sicker than the proverbial dog but the thought of those poor guys in the water kept me glued to the window.

I had a very similar experience on a flight from DFW to Kileen, TX. We were being shaken like ragdolls. We DID return.

It was the last flight out. I had to be there the next morning. There were a bunch of soldiers trying to get back home...so I spoke up and asked "Who wants to split a rental car?" Me and 3 soldiers made the drive. The rain was so bad, there were times when I was only driving about 30 mph on the freeway. I finally got to Kileen about 4 AM...

CV

One time in the late 60s flying BEA on a Trident from London to Amsterdam in winter.

People were thrown all over the aircraft, luggage and lighted cigarettes flew all over the place.

Blood everywhere and at least a dozen people taken off the plane in stretchers.

For some strange or should that be lucky reason I had my seat belt on. I have kept it on ever since then.

Another scary experience was on an Air Canada DC8 or maybe a Boeing 707 from Toronto to London. A malfunction made all the oxygen masks drop down. I now watch the safety film as well hee, hee!

It had to be a DC8. AC never had B707 in the fleet.

USAir Embraer from PHL-IAH

There was so much turbulance, it looked like the wings were going to snap off they were flapping so much

CRJ 700 DSM to MSP Last Sep
Dark clouds and thunderstorms near MSP, the plane went up and down 50 - 100 ft like a yo-yo, the seat belt physically kept me in place.

Worst experience HKG
SQ airlines 747 >8 years ago, after they loaded us, a cyclone came up(!). I guess take off was delayed too much.
I did not know much about flying and it looks like no one involved did either, as they kept on the runway 12 hours until the storm abated.
The plane tossed and turned on the runway and I was very glad we were on the heaviest plane imaginable.

CX A343 YVR-HKG over 10 years ago in Winter over Alaska.

Seat belt sign was on as usual, then suddenly cabin crew was asked to be seated immediately. Then a few seconds later we've headed into strong turbulence which basically I'm flying if not for the seatbelt holding onto me or being pushed into the seat as probably we've being thrown up or down a few hundred feet at a time. Lucky I've got a window seat and it's very interesting to see the wings stretch so much in person.

I've kept my seatbelt buckled whenever I'm seated now.

Humid, stormy April day. Approach into DCA. NW A319. The bouncing around was intense.
Started as nervous laughter, led to Gasps and then crying within the cabin.
Captain came on after landing. Said he had no ideait would be that rough - wewere the first ones on that approach in some time and had no heads up from previous flights.
. . . Can't imagine going through heavy turbulence in Dash / Saab.

Flying out of Durango, Colorado, towards Denver, maybe 20 years ago. Little corporate jet full of oil drillers and yours truly, the company geologist-in-charge at the time.

Two big thunderstorms on the horizon. Captain decides to make a run between the two of them, there being no oxygen on board (so we can't possibly fly over them). Drillers, beer cans, full and empty (and recently re-emptied) barf bags floating all over the cabin. Plane was hit by lightning. All on-board electrics die. Engines die. We fell a fair distance before the crew managed to restart and get some air beneath us again.

I was convinced I was overdue to be dead.

Got off the plane, rubber-kneed, in Denver. Found a phone. Said "send my cheque -- I quit", and booked a flight back to peaceful Vancouver Island.

Where, of course, we landed in a thunderstorm. Yup. :(

my worst experience is a recent one.

flying from GRU to JFK few weeks back. Late night departure from GRU, somewhere around the Caribbean while I was deep asleep there was a short but very strong turbulence. suddenly out of nowhere I could see the flight diving nose down for few LONG seconds and the next moment it was climbing hard. I was glued to the backseat. and then nothing... the turbulence was over but there was this eerie silence

I was on a UA flight a few years ago ... probably YYZ/ORD - SFO (or the other way around).

Was in the lav, standing in front of the toilet to expel urine. And from nowhere, all of a sudden, the plane drops -- not a dive, but a drop. Oh gawd, I swear my urine defied gravity for a moment there.

(thank goodness none of it flew up to my clothing/face -- although it was quite close to me .__.;; yah...quickly finished my stuff and hurried back to my seat)

I've been lucky so far, the worst turbulence was from YYZ-LAX when i was in my teens sometime early 2000's. I think we were about 1-1.5 hours outside LAX and all hell broke loose. FA's had to take seats, and there was some gasps as the airplane dropped.

However, when I used to fly in St. John's i used to pilot Piper Warriors and I used to hit some bad winds with lots of bumps. St. John's is bumpy on a good day and with over 400 landings at YYT I seen my fair share of bad days.

When I was a child, MH (at the time MAS) flight KCH-SIN (Kuching, Malaysia to Singapore) aboard a first-gen B737 ... tropical turbulence ... I remember FA flew up to the ceiling, meal trays everywhere, it was major carnage. After a couple of attempts, the pilot couldn't land at SIN due to poor conditions (?), diverted to JHB (Johor Bahru) a short ways from SIN, even that took a couple of touch-n-go's and the eventual landing was hard. Ironically, that probably sparked my fascination with aviation and in particular, aviation incidents and the many valuable lessons learned from the most unfortunate events. People don't understand why I enjoy flying so much despite of that. Now I specialize in fixing IT (security) disasters :)

AC/YYZ-YUL
US/PHL-BUF

both were Nor-easter days........