Scariest In-Flight Experiences
 

In 2003, I was on a flight home after a full month in Vietnam. Great place to visit, but gets tiring after say... a month. I was glad to get home. Our Cathay Pacific A330 from Ho Chi Minh City to Hong Kong started filling with smoke right after take off. It was a very noxious smoke that came from the hydraulic fluid (or so they told us) and we had to return to the airport. We made it back safely, THANK GOD. After three hours of keeping us at the airport, they finally canceled the flight and put us up in a pretty nice hotel for the night. So in the end, I got home safely, two days late.

I had a guy sitting next to me on a plane back from Nevada start chatting with me about how he'd left his home state because he was wanted by the police, but now that the statue of limitations had run out he was finally coming back. He confided that he had indeed thrown the guy off the bridge and killed him. Huge guy, even sitting down he towered over me (and I'm 6'1").

I made a good show of sleeping for the rest of the flight, heh.

Or maybe he thought you were a talker and came up with this story to avoid having you even dare talk to him?

Was flying from LHR-JFK on Concorde (Thanks FT!).

I was watching the machmeter approach mach 2, then slow, the approach mach 2 again. After a few cycles like this the captain came on the PA and explained that we had a problem with the engine intake and would have to return to LHR. Even though we were already halfway across the pond the prevailing winds meant we did not have enough fuel to reach JFK. We limped back home to LHR subsonic.

I found the whole thing kind of exciting, but the poor women sitting behind me was quite upset. The captain had to come over to calm her down.

As one of the few times I thought I was going to die, my very first experience with severe turbulence was pure terror. I imagine most people react the same way. Now I fly with a sense of morbid resignation.

I wasn't scared, but the other passengers were.

We were about three minutes out of HKG bound for Haikou when the plane dropped and everyone sort of floated up out of their seats and started to scream... I saw one person bang his head on the overhead bin because his seat belt was really loose. The weightless sensation lasted about three seconds and then it stopped.

Another time, we were flying TPE-SFO and turbulence hit. I was in the aisle for a stretch and grabbed on to the seatbacks on either side of me to avoid flying up. Once again, pax were screaming their heads off.

Smell of smoke in cabin aboard UA839 LAX/SYD on 02/28/07. Turned out to be nothing, but when the IFE and the aircon and the cabin lights all go off (presumably while the pilots do their checklists), and you're still 3.5 hours out of SYD, it's a little unsettling...

Losing an engine on takeoff, to be avoided if possible...

SAAB 340 departing ACT, breaks ground, begins left clearing turn, loses Port Engine....

Believe me, losing an engine is not much these days, and the SAAB has a decent power/weight ratio, but you do not want to lose a Port engine while already turning left..... We had cleared the dam and its riprap, and were over the lake. All of a sudden it occurs to me that water is not compressible, but SAABs and folks are....

Fortunately, the pilot gets back to wings level, gains a little altitude and reverses to a nice long slow starbard turn with little bank to get us back into the pattern, easy at ACT, 'cuz traffic is slim.

Watching David Cronenberg riveted to "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective II" on a flight from LAX to YYZ a few years back. :p

Still want to know what was going through his mind ...

Seriously though - major turbulence on a UA flight to PHL in 1990. Not quite weightless territory, but white knuckles all the way.

Same here---major turbulence on a return flight from PA to NYC. It's unnerving when PAXs scream, isn't it? (And puke) There were many white knuckled fliers that afternoon. This was years ago when my 22 YO was an infant. He slept through the entire event, but it shook me up a bit. Hasn't happened since, thankfully.

Flying EasyJet to Geneva. Seriously. I still have nightmares.

Maybe you will have the last laugh since there is no statute of limitations on murder in most (or all) states. :)

Turbulence returning from Mexico. Hit a pocket and the plane dropped. That wasn't so much the scary part, but then the plane dipped to the left - felt like it was about 20 degrees, rights itself then dips left again even further. Rights itself (or I should say Pilot righted it!), then dropped again one more time. Turbulence doesn't usually scare me but this scared the heck out of me. Lots of screaming passengers (not me) as well. I was sitting with my son and nephew. Nephew was white as a ghost, son thought it was fun.

A couple hours into a flight from Caracas to Miami, @ 30,000 feet, the power died. !!!!

Five seconds later, we were back okay, but that was probably the scariest five seconds of my life.

On final approach to AMS on a KLM 767 from Nairobi when the plane is stuck by lightening. That wasn't too bad, but it seemed to take ages before one of the pilots came on to let us know what had happened.

Good idea. I may try that if I come across someone I would rather not talk to:p

He probably could have just told the story just to see what his reaction might be.