From Airsafe.com -

"2 August 1985; Delta Airlines L1011-1; Dallas, TX: The aircraft crashed shortly before landing after encountering a wind shear from a passing thunderstorm. Eight of the 11 crew members and 128 of the 152 passengers were killed. One person in a passing car was also killed."

When something like this happens to you, you don't forget it - I do know the feeling.

Wow that is very scary indeed!

I know if i was a pilot I would never want to fly in a bad storm, but you just have to do it company makes ya i guess.

Very scary to hear something like that happen.

Wow, Punki, did the plane crash? Hopefully everyone get out ok?

A pretty close friend survived UA 232; what little he's said (first hand) leads me to believe that is was very, very nasty. (He had to fly from Sioux City to Denver the next day; not sure I could've done that!) A neighbor survived SQ006 (He was on the upper deck) and although I've only heard second-hand reports, that was a bit harrowing as well.

I was on a flight once from YQT to YYZ, shortly after taking off we all heard a loud pop but thought nothing of it. 1.5 hrs later as we were coming into YYZ, the pilot announced he only had 1 engine (737) and had declared an emergency for our landing. Although the engine had quit when we took off, he felt more secure carrying on to the larger airport where more emergency services were on hand, should anything go wrong.

The runway was lined with firetrucks, foamed at the end, ambulances stood by etc., we were all in the crash position and he made a picture perfect landing. Better than some that have all their engines working. Once it was clear we were safe, the PAX broke into applause.

That was my 2nd year of flying and 15 years later I still think of it whenever I hear a pop, bang etc., coming from where the engines are... happy to be alive.

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If you want to experience good customer service from an airline forget Air Canada and try CanJet or WestJet

A couple of years ago while flying SNA-OAK on AS, we were in our final approach into OAK. The ac did a lurch and a dive (over water), and then clumbed a bit before diving again. The pilots straightened the plane out again, and we landed. While taxiing, the pilot came on the intercom and very tersely said that the controller had placed us in another plane's wake.

A couple of months ago, I was on one of our company's planes (Westwind), returning to Dallas (Redbird, now Dallas Executive Airport). There is usually a crosswind, but this day there were gusts, too. The plane came in at an angle with the left wing dipped. As we were to land, we were hit by a gust, causing the left wing to dip further. A co-worker sitting on the left side estimated there was about three inches clearance. The pilot (who now flies for WN) and co-pilot were very quite when they left the plane.

This one would have been more harrowing had I known the reason for it while it was happening. In 1997 I was flying on BA from LHR to CPT. It was an overnight flight, and as I learned later we were the first flight to arrive in CPT that morning. As we came in on our approach, just a few seconds before touchdown the pilot pulled up dramatically. Engines were on full throttle, climbing at a steep angle, etc. After a minute we levelled off and the pilot announced that they had been doing some maintenance on the runway overnight, and that someone had evidently forgotten to remove one of the maintenance vehicles from the runway. We circled while somebody ran out and moved the vehicle, then we came in for a normal landing.

This was my introduction to air travel in Africa.

Edited for spelling

[This message has been edited by senor hamachi (edited 08-27-2002).]

Everytime I'm at the controls! http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...um/biggrin.gif

(just kidding)

FlyForFun, years before I was born, my Father told me about the time he had a ticket to O'hare. The day of the flight, he decided to take the bus instead of flying. The flight he was ticketed on crashed at O'hare, killing most of the passengers.

this reminds me of the time when I was sitting on an AC flight in YYZ as a storm system moved through. The pilot came on the comm and told us first that we were about 37th in line for take-off... when the storm cell cleared. Then he said something about an old pilot's adage that i'll always remember:

"i'd rather be on the ground wishing I was up in the air than to be up in the air wishing that I was on the ground"

In 1970, I was flying from Ankara, Turkey to Karamursel with my 7-day-old daughter on a small Red Cross Medevac plane that carried approximately 24 passengers when we hit a bad storm over the mountains. The plane was pitching wildly from side to side, things were breaking loose inside the plane and rolling up and down the aisle, and passengers were screaming and crying. All I could do was hold the baby tightly and pray. I was convinced that we would crash in the remote mountains below and my husband would never see his firstborn. The trip to Ankara 7 days before had been rough also, but nowhere as bad. What I thought was airsickness turned out to be early labor, and I delivered an 8 1/2 pounder 12 hours after landing. Oh, well, it beat going by camel.

I flew once on Royal Nepal Airlines from Nepalgunj in western Nepal to Kathmandu. We got to the airport and were told the flight was cancelled so we checked into a hotel. An hour after checking in we got a call to go back to the airport because a flight might be leaving. At the airport we waited and waited and after many unanswered questions were give permission to walk out on the tarmac and talk to the pilots. The pilots were standing in front of the plane, arguing in Hindi with a man in a grey shirt and pointing at at a box. We were told to go back the concourse, when all of a sudden they called us back and made us a proposition.

The man in the grey shirt was the mechanic, he was flying back to Kathmandu with the pilot. They couldn't guarantee that the plane was repaired but we could fly at our own risk, which not wanting to be stuck in Nepalgunj we agreed to.

The flight started out fine. There was no separation on the small plane between the
cockpit and the passenger area. We were concerened and watched the pilots intently. About 30 minutes into the flight we watched in horror as every single light and dial on the control panel either went out or was inoperable. The pilots were very vocal in calling up the man in the grey shirt who calmly plugged in his grey box which contained analog flight data readings. The pilots had to keep turning around to look at the box. We encountered good weather throughout and landed at Kathmandu without any problems.

I survived (doh, I guess that's obvious) a small twin-engine private plane crash. We actually didn't crash until we were on the ground. The taxi lights were out at the airport (system was bring replaced) and we taxied into a drainage ditch. It was only about 6-8' deep, but falling nose down into it in the dark made it seem like a 40' foot fall. The plane didn't survive.

I've been involved in plane, boat and car crashes. I now try to avoid trains.

Early 1969, flying from Toronto to JFK (after a weekend visit to my soon-to-be wife), I was returning to NY on the last Air Canada flight out that evening. Flight was being held in Toronto because of a snowstorm in NY. Finally, we boarded our DC-9 for the flight to JFK. After takeoff, the pilot announced that the snowstorm had returned to NY, and if it didn't ease shortly, we would be diverted to Boston. Shortly thereafter he announced that we would be trying an approach to JFK. My window seat on the left side of the aircraft gave me a good view of the approach, though it was snowing lightly as we turned on our final, but not particularly bumpy as we descended.
Just as wwe crossed the threshold (I could make out the runway stripes), and as he started to pull the nose up prior to touching down, we got hit with a blast of wind that threw the aircraft up on one wing. We were still over the runway, and literally flying with one wing up and one wing down. Pilot wrestled with the plane, and it flipped to the other wing up, finally leveling off and bouncing hard onto the runway. I'm sure this happened in only a matter of split seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime. Loud cheering from all the pax after we finally turned off the runway after a long roll-out.
It never diminished my love for flying, but you know how they say that your entire life flashes before you in an instant--it happened!

bj-21.

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'Tis better to have played and won, then never to have played at all.

Jeff

1) 1988 Caracas to Miami watched the wings of a L1011 flap like a bird in the vicinity of a hurricane.

2) Hot Springs Arkansas 1983 Rio Airways 14 PAX On final a tornado ripped the roof off of the food for less grocery store 3 blocks away while on final, pilot landed anyway. Cockpit door was open and you could see the runway rolling wildly back and forth.

3) Bolivia 1988 pressurization not functional on departure so we had a tiny bottle of oxygen 20 passengers passed around and most threw up at some point in he flight.

4) Different flight bolivia 1988 727 circled cochabamba 2 times in a 727 before heading towards the mountian. Near the top of the mountian we were exchanging waives with a farmer working his field. Turns out the circles were to gain altitude.

5) In pilot training in a cessna instructor pulled the throtle and told me to land in a guys yard. Turned out to be his friends yard who had an experimental aircraft in the garage but it was a shock.

and the DL incident in DFW. I was staying with friends in FLL they took me and another of their friends to the airport togather for him to catch DL to DFW and I took a flight connecting through Pittsburg to arrive at DFW and find his flight had crached.

Haiku version #1:

goose into engine
plane smells very much like chicken
pilot says go back now