White Knuckle Experiences in Flight
 

I am curious about the shared "white knuckle" experiences of the community.

I would greatly appreciate if we keep the opinion, commentary and flack out of the discussion, just simply the post(s) of the your most challenging, frightening and share worthy events you have experienced in aviation.

Being a lifelong aviator, I have a few and will share periodically if the post needs a bump . . .

Thanks and hopefully we will enjoy our collective experiences:

Enroute to EWR onboard PE (circa 1985/86), the weather conditions on the entire east coast deteriorated substantially while enroute this evening, which closed not only EWR; but, all four alternate airports.

Hours of constant turns and circling. From my experience, I knew something was going on; but, could only hypothesize from the cheap seats (gear, flaps, etc) as to why we had not yet arrived in EWR or heard from the crew.

Landing was abrupt and sudden. Many in the cabin screamed and braced. Although I heard the precursors to landing, it even caught me by surprise. The conditions were absolutely horrible. We could not see the bottom of the stairs, tail or wing tips let alone the terminal. I have never seen fog that thick.

I was a JS, the last person to get off the a/c and my colleagues up front exited with me. They were sheet white and drenched with sweat. All they could say, as we walked down the air stairs, "it was a miracle", the FE could not understand how we made ORF, we should have run out of fuel 15 minutes earlier.

I could only imagine the scene up front. Having absolutely no choice but to land completely blind with no fuel. Mind, this is 1985/86, the precision landing systems were a thing of the future.

Years later, I was in EGE reviewing a fuel ticket and noticed a "bump" in the loaded lbs. They fueler made a casual comment that when the request is an odd number, he just rounds up . . . . Perhaps a fueler years before had the same philosophy and the extra few lbs of fuel saved MANY lives.

The Heathrow to Amsterdam shuttle frequently had some of the wobbliest landings I've ever done, as done any prop (e.g. Fokker 50) trying to land at London City Airport in over 20 m/h winds - there's a pretty extreme descent at the best of times.

I think my most notable recent white knuckle experience was with LAM (Air Mozambique) in a new Embrauer. We'd just started our descent when we suddenly hit what I assume was clear air turbulence. The aeroplane was pointing straight, but we dropped for what was probably only 5-10 seconds, but felt like an eternity. I was chatting to a fellow Flyertalker and our conversation gradually slowed, then stopped, then we both started looking concerned, then we braced ourselves against our seats. I don't know how far we dropped, but it must have been a few thousand feet, and I suspect quite a bit more.

Never felt anything like it before, or thankfully since.

Was flying in a very tired Yak-42 when there was a large boom from the tail area. Cabin then started filling with smoke. One of the engines failed in spectacular fashion but everything was contained. The next day, however, we woke up to smoke coming from the direction of the airport and a CNN International report about a plane going down. Turned out the same plane had an engine failure on take off and crashed. No survivors.

Learned to fly at a very busy airport. When doing touch and go's one day, the pattern was full of all sorts of aircraft. Around my 5th, tower requested I do a 360 turn for spacing. Acknowledged the request and left the pattern. During this time, my flight instructor and I kept a mental note of all the aircraft around us and tower did his best to call out traffic. We did not have TIS or any other collision avoidance system besides the Mk1 Eyeball. As I was reentering the downwind, I did the standard traffic check which so many pilots forget because it becomes so routine.

Instead of clear sky, I saw a Piper Comanche. Instinctively, I firewalled the throttle and pulled a hard turn. To this day I still remember making eye contact with one of the Piper's passengers and seeing the look for fear on his face. Turns out the Piper requested a departure following the runway's heading. Without radioing the tower, he decided to do a touch and go. Tower was too busy with all the IFR traffic to notice the Piper deviate from his expected course and reenter the traffic pattern. After landing and taxiing back to the ramp. I sat there shaking. My CFI who was a F4 Phantom driver who saw combat over Vietnam told me after an experience like that, just sit a while. Eventually I pulled myself together and headed into the terminal.

When I was a kid, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, my family and I were on a Pan Am flight that over-ran the runway. Not really a white knuckle experience because we didn't know it was going to happen until it did. I barely remember anyhow. But we had to evacuate down the slides because the plane sunk into the grass and they couldn't get it out or get air-stairs to it. I remember my mother being completely upset though.

2 years ago I was on a CRJ with non-functioning flaps coming into COS in bad weather. It was nerve wracking for me because I guessed that the flaps were only the symptom of a larger problem with hydraulics.

I was on an MD-80 going into DFW at night in a thunderstorm..that was pretty wild. The rain was so thick I was worried the engines were going to ingest more than they could handle, and when we did make it and taxiied in, I noticed that there was hail too..

Landing at SAN a few weeks ago I could tell we were on the visual to runway 9, and I thought we were going a bit long (SAN is my home airport so I know how it feels). We were coming in "high and hot" and the aircraft ballooned, came back down (I had already thought I would have TOGA'd, I hold a PPL myself) and I could have sworn we were going to over-run, the braking was so hard I thought my eyeballs were going to fly out of their sockets and the brakes would catch fire. When we stopped and turned, we were at the opposite threshold. Used it allll up.

Many aborted landings, but only one freaked me out. Iberia, Malaga around 1982, 727. We must have aborted at 200 ft. Up so steep I thougt we would stall. Came back around and landed, and as the pax exited the Iberia pilots would say goodbye..this pilot was sweating profusely.

The scariest I think I have related on this board before. A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Pisa in 98. While we are sitting around the gate the pilot shows up and is in a complete rage. I did not speak German at the time, but he was screaming and throwing his arms around and the Gate crew were terrified of him. We board, push back, and this guy is obviously "driving angry". We were taxiing way over the limit and on turns would be leaning left and right and hanging on for dear life. The plane, an A319, took of like a freaking rocket..no toga button, he throttled it all the way up and took off at what must have been 2500 vsl. And on approach to Pisa, this guy just pointed the nose down and aimed it at the runway, spoilers out all the way to the ground, HARD braking. I thought we had a psychotic pilot. Taxi in was like the taxi out, being thrown around everywhere. And then the pilot pushed past us in the jetway and was screaming bloody murder at the gate crew at Pisa. He must have been near his max hours!! It did not look good for Lufthansa.

Crazy Russian lady behind me
 

A few weeks back, going from MUC - ORD on LH 341, I think I had my first white knuckle experience...maybe?

During the boarding process, the Russian lady behind me was talking on her cell, LOUDLY and obnoxiously. Well, I thought, when the door is closed, this will be over, I am just gonna ignore it. And low and behold, she was getting agitated with her phone call, and started violently shaking my seat (cattle class). So I turned around and asked her nicely to stop pulling my seat.

"You should stop pulling your seat," that's what she said. Ziiing!

Irritated as I was, I took out my iPad and started reading when we are reaching the cruising altitude. You'd think things be quite and pieceful from now on right?

WROOONG!

I decided to skip the meal service, and went straight to sleep. So even before they started serving the meal, I reclined my seat about 3/4 way to start sleeping, and guess what she did?

She slammed on my seat, pushed it way back, and screamed at me!
"This is not business class, you can't sleep like that, that is MY space."

Luckily, a flight attendant saw that and told her off nicely, and just to irritate her further, this time I reclined fully (which, wasn't much in cattle class anyways.):D

Just when I was about to really sleep, I heard puppies barking! So I thought, she might have paid for that and let the pet board. But then I felt something furry touching my arm... Being allergic to cats and dogs, I called for the FA, and thank goodness, per the rule, pets are not allowed outside the cage.

But I guess it was too late, my nose started getting runny for the rest of the flight, and those Zyrtec didn't really work either. Graduated medical school myself, I know fully what might happen if I am exposed in the allergen for a prolonged amount of time. Where's my epipen when I needed it? I politely asked the FA is there anything s/he can do.

By that time, the Russian lady had already caught attention of the crew member of her boorish behavior and letting the dog out, and that someone kept exercising his right in reclining his seat in front of him, has resentfully relegated herself back to the tail section and stood there as time "flew" by. (no pun intended)

Anyways, the male FA, apparently had enough of the debacle, just came by, and made sure the dog was in the cage and sneered at me and walked away, without even leaving me an extra roll of toilet paper for my nose.

After my short sleep, I decided to get up and about and a cute LH FA came up and we started chatting up, maybe because she was curious about the whole debacle. It started out as a nice convo, but before you know, I was irritated, again. Why you say?

"If you told me about your situation and your allergy, I'd gladly move you to first class, our business class is full this time around."
"Oh thanks! Why didn't you tell me that 6 hours earlier?" I said to myself, knowing that we are 1.5 hours away from ORD.
But all in all, she did give me some valuable advices when dealing with this in the future, so i got nothing against her.

Plus, she flies to ORD on avg. 5 times a month, and agreed to meet me up for lunch next time around.. anyways, TMI.

So there I was, after the flight, felt punk'd, I decided to write up a letter to LH and explained the whole debacle, knowing that I probably wont get anything back, I was glad at least I vented.

2 weeks later, LH wrote me back and offered me a system-wide eco-class 10% certificate for all future flights. I guess that's a happy ending.

Fair? Your thoughts are welcome.:)

White knuckles in Africa
 

I was flying with my wife on a South African Airways flight from Lusaka to Johannesburg on a 737. There was a storm in Johannesburg, and the descent was very rough. At about 2,000 feet (I'm estimating), we hit wind shear that caused the plane to violently drop, causing everyone in the plane to scream in panic. Two seconds later, the pilot aborted the landing with an incredibly steep climb. We then diverted for landing in Durban.

My wife (who doesn't fly as much as me) was really freaked out by the whole thing and made good use of TWO airsick bags, but I told her I was incredibly happy the pilot made the decision to abort. Great call on his part.

Dragen Owner

Yesterday 3/20/11 LAS-LGB.

Pilot warned us of "bumpy" flight before takeoff due to high winds in LAS and big storm in LGB.

Most of flight was normal/moderate chop.

1/2 hour outside LGB a violent shift to the right that threw the FA's to the floor. Followed shortly by a sharp and violent drop. Felt like the plane hit with a giant hammer.

Drinks flew throughout the cabin. FA's huddled on floor.

Rest of the flight was very rough and the airsick bags were used throughout the cabin. While waling off plane there were a few who didn't make it to the bags and the clean up crew had their work cut out for them.

2008 ORD-LHR United 777
We were landing at LHR in a horrible wind (had to be at least 20-30MPH) we were being tossed around like a beach ball and the Pilots kept jockying the engines. It was a wild ride to say the least.

When they ran out of rum on my last SJU-LAX flight...

I remember a flight EWR-BUF on PE. We took off OK and kept flying. Then one of the pilots came sauntering out of the cockpit, whistling softly, and preceeded to lift up a hatch that was in the middle of the aisle (727). I never knew that hatch was there, though I must have walked over it many times.

Anyhow, he disappears into the lower bowels of the a/c while we all watched, a little dumbstruck. Then climbed back up, re-secured the hatch, and sauntered back to the cockpit.

Eventually, we got an announcement that we were heading back to EWR. Something about the wheels might be down or might not - at any rate, they didn't know for sure. So there we were, all in the crash position, and as we're approaching I notice the runway is lined with emergency equipment. How nice! Just for us, I assumed.

As it turned out, we landed safely and trundled another 727 out for us to continue the trip.

I got back on. A lot of folks didn't.

Going into Hannover about 6 years ago ....in the back of a BA Connect 145. Thunderstorms brewing everywhere....all the dust from the floor up in the air...on the ceiling then back on the floor.
Speaking to the locals that night they called these storms as a super cells ...where lots of thunderclouds group together. Scared me to death!

A normal landing at Saba, the world's shortest commercial runway.

The twin Otter Glides in, wingtip practically striking sparks from the cliff face. Reverse pitch, full throttle while still in the air. Stall warning sounds, wheels hit, end of runway coming up. And stop. Feet to spare.

Sounds like an extremely annoying flight, but not quite sure the type of thing OP had in mind when asking about "white knuckle" experiences.

My most white-knuckle travel experience was not on an airplane but on the shuttle bus traveling to the airport for my second flight ever. Pittsburg, 1989. Driver is some combination of nuts, blind, angry, and a comedian.

The fun starts as we pick up the last passenger. Driver gets on the PA. "(static) I've got good news and bad news. (static) The bad news is every major road to the airport is congested with rush hour traffic and most of you will miss your flights. (static) The good news is we're not going to use any major roads."

Driver yanks the steering wheel hard and floors the throttle. Bus goes lurching around a corner. He accelerates down a narrow street, weaving around parked delivery trucks. Not only are we exceeding the speed limit, but it is a one-way street and we are going the wrong way.

Driver turns hard onto an arterial street. Runs a red light at a major intersection. Honks at the pedestrians who are in the middle of the crosswalk, crossing with the light! Driver gets on the PA again. "(static) Where do they teach people to walk in this city?"

I note the looks of horror frozen onto the pedestrians' faces as we pass within inches of them. The same looks of horror are on the faces of all my fellow passengers. We are holding on for dear life and afraid to say anything to the driver.

Driver continues jackrabbit starts and stops across city streets. It's deathly quiet in the bus so he gets on the PA again, this time playing up tour guide trivia. "(static) There are over 800 bridges in Pittsburgh. (static) That's more than any other city in the world. (static) And they're all free."

I double-checked his facts years later while preparing a report on the trip. Pittsburgh, known as "The City of Bridges", is the world record holder, but it has only 446.

Back to the trip. Actually, I forget the rest of it. By that point my mental faculties were reduced to basic fight-or-flight responses. Next thing I know, the bus arrives at PIT in one piece. There are no injuries and no visible damage. A small miracle. Three of eight passengers clamber down the stairs and literally kiss the ground. Still shaking, we unload our luggage from the back, enter the airport, and embark on the statistically safest part of our journeys, flying in a commercial aircraft.

Following along with a previous poster’s shuttle bus experience, I was on a limo bus to NRT last week when the driver came to a *full stop* from highway speeds.

I was reading a newspaper when everyone on the bus lurched forward. Given that everyone was rather tense due to the situation in the country, it took a few seconds to realize that the driver had just been cut off.

Now I know why this is the first shuttle bus that’s insisted on seatbelts. :D

Landing at Wellington on a breezy day usually enables you to spot the visitors (people turning green) from the locals (nonchalant).

Apprehension about landing in Saint-Barthélemy

Flying from EWR-->ORD several years ago, I was seated over the right side wing. About 5 minutes after taking off, there was a loud bang and flames shot from one of the engines on that wing. The woman in the row in front of me screamed, which was worse than the bang & flames itself. The pilot came on and said that we were heading back to Newark. They had the emergency crews out for us there, but we landed safely and uneventfully.

My brother worked for one of the major jet engine manufacturers at the time on their test stand and said that this was likely a compressor stall.

Being on final approach into LAS and having to pee worse than I could ever remember having too. I was gripping the armrests and praying we wouldn't have to wait on our gate once we landed and cursing myself for drinking so many sodas. I walked off the plane as fast as I could while dealing with the pain.

A worse experience than any turbulence I've been through.

The Virgin flight to Las Vegas has run out of Stella Artois now on two ocassions with about 4 hours flying time left.

My hubby went to Saba to do some scuba diving and he said it was the smallest runways he has ever seen. I think the landing scared him some, not that he will ever say it did. ;)

Just watch....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHmrcCfdZFM

Also fun to fly out of.

Easily DAL/HOU or SEA/DEN
 

I can't remember the year but flying a Braniff 707 from old Love Field to Houston Hobby through notorious Texas thunderstorms was as bad as I've ever experienced.

We were at least two hours late leaving Dallas and the attendants served drinks while we sat on the runway (when was the last time you ever had that experience, if ever) for two hours. We took off to the north and I do not recall ever feeling turning south to Houston because it was so turbulent you couldn't tell banking from flipping sideways lol.

Second would be a Continental 727 from Seattle over the rockies to Denver. Nuff said. I was a smoker in those days and you could smoke. I had to borrow a cig from my seat mate as I ran out :)

I'd put those two up against flying through a Typhoon into Fiju anyday on old Pan Am on way to Sydney.

My favorite flight yet. It's not a pretty landing. Get it on the runway, make i stop before arriving at the other end.

About mid-flight in a Beech 1900 over the sea. Raining. Late evening/Night. Everything is pretty much fine. A little bumpy on take-off but everythings is OK, till the plane decides to drop. Not sure how much feet it was but it felt significant. The pilots climb (with the wings banked a bit to the left) then we drop again, then we climb again. Every female on board crying or praying out loud or both.

Older guy up in the front seat tells the pilots to speed up because "they're crying in the back there" :D

Flight from MSY to DTW last December after the first snow of the season. Flight was delayed a couple of hours and then we had to circle the airport a couple of times before landing. The runway was not completely free of ice/snow and we proceeded to fishtail down the runway...at least we were slowing down. Caught my connecting flight to BWI and after sitting on the tarmac for a couple of hours, we proceeded to takeoff. The runway STILL hadn't been completely cleared of snow/ice ,and we fishtailed down the runway as we were speeding up on the runway to takeoff. I thought the plane was going to careen out of control. My travel buddy looked at me wide eyed during the takeoff completely speechless. So glad to make it off the ground.

Had 2....
 

...one was flying from YVR-NRT...we hit some nasty turbulance, and my belt was loose...when we dropped I hit the belt so hard my gut was sore for 3-4 days....others went flying and a lady waiting to get into the loo hit her head on the roof...there were drinks/food even bags popped out of the overhead....lots of fun.
...two was Thunder Bay - Toronto (too lazy to look up Thunder Bay code) in mid winter.
YYZ wasn't accepting flights due to bad weather so we were forced to land in Sudbury in almost as bad weather.
...we make a couple of attempts and pull up just before touch down.
...third attempt wheels down and we start to slide (just like black ice in your car)...captain quickly tells people to get in crash position as you can feel the plane sliding.
...runway runs out we keep going over snow until we run into a fence, but we were slowed down by the snow so it was just kind of a thud when we hit the fence.
....hi-lite was they brought a big tractor with a rope to drag us back onto the runway (love small town airports).
...so mid winter they brought out the steps, we walked outside in -20 weather and proceeded into the terminal...and I got a free night in beautiful downtown sudbury

I wonder about that each time I see people chugging big sodas in the terminal. An ounce of prevention.....

JS means a "Junior Something" ?

Jump Seater

Sounds like a secret language code for something far far worse !

KE 747 ORD-ICN. Hit a patch of moderate turbulence over the Pacific. Not really super violent, just enough that the seatbelt sign came on, the FAs took their seats, and getting out of your seat would have been dicey.

So the white knuckle part? My toddler son was awakened by the turbulence and turns to me and says, "Daddy, I need to go potty. REALLY BAD."

He managed to hold on until the worst of the turbulence was over about 10-15 minutes (seemed like days) later and we started to sprint to the lav before the seatbelt light was turned off (I know, I know). One of the FAs started to object (politely -- this was a KE flight after all) but only got halfway through it before the pilot turned the seatbelt light off. We (or more specifically my son) made it to the lav OK. Good thing we did sprint, as there was quite a line when we came out.

One more: A normal landing at Culebra PR.

A call from wife while waiting for my connection in San Juan. "Have your camera out for the landing."

"OK. Why?"

"You'll see."

The landing strip is nestled behind mountains. The glide path is through a notch in the mountains. The notch is NOT aligned with the runway.

Pilot does a falling leaf (a fighter tactic) to line up, and brings us in light as a feather. My palms still sweat when I look at my video.

I would love to see that video.

while landing in oakland in a crosswind, the left side landing gear touched the ground and bounced 2-3 times before the right side came down and we actually landed.

on a stormy night taking off from denver, i experienced about 1 second of 0 g. it seemed to have no visible effect on the, ahem, surgically endowed woman sitting in my row.

on my first transpac on korean air, the plane felt it it was fighting ferrets, jumping and bobbing around so much i was afraid i'd get thrown out of my seat. yet the guy seated next to me kept eating his soup as if nothing untoward was happening, and didn't even spill a drop.

a few colleagues were flying a turboprop from crescent city to san francisco on a rainy day, and the ferrets were back in action. one colleague in particular said she was about ready to jump out if the plane kept shaking so much. i told her that this is normal, it happens all the time. her response: "remind me never to fly with you again!"

White Knucke and FUN!
 

MANY years ago I hopped on a GP Express B1900 flight from Omaha to Minneapolis. Absolutely beautiful day and on the B1900 you can observe incredible views, left right and forward, as there is no cockpit door.

Upon approach to MSP, I hear the chatter up front, got localizer, radio settings, approach conversation, runway visual, etc etc; but, when I looked up front, the runway was NOWHERE to be found . . . until I glanced out the right hand window.

It was absolutely graceful and a combination of arousal and concern when you are sliding at a 30-40 degree angle upon approach. Pretty much gunning it into the wind at the right balance to maintain forward momentum. The landing was equally graceful, left main, rudder, spoil lift, right main and nose.

1000's of flights and I still remain impressed with what this crew did. Put 99% of folks in my seat and they would be terrified. Absolute beauty.

About ten years ago, I was on a Royal Air Maroc flight from Marrakech to Casablanca. It was extremely foggy with zero visibility on approach. We were about to touch down and I could just make out the runway below (not more than 10 meters) when the pilot applied full thrust and aborted. It felt like we didn't gain any altitude for a few seconds as I could still see the runway below. We finally gained altitude and flew back to Marrakech. After we landed, the captain announced that due to the zero visibility and miscommunication with the tower, he was about to touchdown more than halfway along the runway in Casablanca (which would have led to overrun) and aborted. Definitely a white knuckle moment.

15 years ago - April 3, 1986

We (TWA crew) get to the Athens Airport after an amazing layover, ready to take our 747SP home to JFK. Once we get to the A/C we hear about Flt#840 (FCO-ATH) that was bombed.

That put into shocking perspective why part of our job requirements back in the day were to tear apart the aircraft before each departure. It was no wonder that we had only 11 passengers on the flight to JFK.

Mine is a little different, in that the flight itself was a smooth one. It was the pre-flight that was a bit harrowing.

Anchorage - SEA, early 2003. Leaving after a difficult week of work. Plane is lightly loaded - maybe 30 people in Coach. I am in 10E with the row to myself. Young woman with baby across from me one aisle back, and only the bulkhead row of coach (7) is moderately full.

Almost ready to pull back from the gate, and I notice a mild commotion in front of me in the BH row. Female FA listens and leaves, Male FA returns in her place. Apparently 7D had boarded with a large folding knife on his belt. This is POST-9-11, and nobody noticed the knife. Had he just left it on his belt, it wouldn't have been a problem. But no. He takes off his boots and socks, opens his knife, and proceeds to give himself an amateur pedicure, right there on the plane. The commotion was because that made 7B uncomfortable. The FA asked the man to put the knife away until the flight was over. The man refused. Spidey-sense is now tingling slightly.

Male FA tells knife-man that if he won't put it away, he will have to leave it with the FA for the duration. KM refuses. FA says that if he won't, he will have to get the captain, and leave it with him. KM STILL refuses to cooperate. Spidey-sense is now on full alert. I have unbuckled my seat belt, raised the armrests, moved to the aisle, and have already figured out that if this guy goes nutso, I am the only person within 20 feet with a chance of dealing with him physically, and it ain't a real good chance. He wasn't very big, but his knife was. Though the Marine in me would do what was necessary to protect the people around me (especially the young woman with the baby), I am NOT looking forward to having to deal with a knife in close quarters.

I tell woman with baby to get against the bulkhead. Male FA goes to get the Captain. Captain comes out and repeats the request to give up the knife until the flight was over. KM still refuses. Spidey-sense in total tingle mode now. Captain says that since the cabin door was closed, he will have to pull back up to the gate and have police arrest KM if he won't give up the knife. KNIFE MAN STILL REFUSES TO COOPERATE.

I am way past spidey-sense, this is an Oh, CRAP help me Jesus moment. Male FA stands by while Captain brings plane the few feet back to the gate. A few minutes later, two cops come on board and, (to the amazement of us all) without incident, take the guy away in cuffs.

I have had a few rough flights, but nothing compares to that one.