The "Checking Out" thread got me started thinking about interesting (weird) flights that I have been on.

1. I was flying from SF to London in early December. The weather in SF was nasty wet and cold. The flight was to leave at about 5:00 on Saturday afternoon. The plane was a 747 stretch, and was fully loaded.

The pilot started his take-off roll and was getting up to speed when all of the sudden a 30 or 40 foot long flame shoots out of the left inboard engine. The pilot shut everything down quickly, and hit the brakes like there was no tomorrow. I thought for sure we were going to end up in the bay, but he got the thing slowed enough to make the last taxiway back to the gate.

Apparently that type of engine, when fully loaded, will occasionally backfire. So when they got back to the gate, a mechanic scoped the engine, found all the blades intact, so off we went again. The pilot came on the intercom and said that it was lucky it was raining because if he had tried to brake that hard on dry pavement, he probably would have blown all the tires. The water on the runway kept the tires cool.

2. I was in a little twin engine puddle jumper flying into Lubbock, TX. We were on final approach, wheels down, flaps down, etc, when all of the sudden I hear the engines spin up, and the wheels and flaps start to come up. The pilot pulled up to the left. I was sitting in a window seat on the right side of the plane, so as he turned I could look right down the runway, and there was a funnel cloud coming straight down the runway.

3. I was in a Boeing 727 flying from Midland/Odessa, TX back to Austin. The airport had only one runway and the wind was howling at almost right angles to the runway.
The pilot started his takeoff roll, and as he got up to speed, there was a loud bang from the back of the plane and the whole plane shook. He slowed down and came back around for another try. He started his takeoff roll again and the same thing happened. This time we went back and sat at the gate for awhile for the wind to die down. Apparently, the wind was blowing so hard it was causing the inlet of one of the engines to cavitate.

4. The worst flight I have ever had was from Rock Springs, WY to Denver, CO on a warm afternoon in June. The plane was a Convair 580 or 880 (not sure which one) but it only cruised at 19,000 ft. The peaks in the Rockies reach up to about 14,000 feet or so. Since it was a warm afternoon, the thermals were in full bloom. That flight felt like about every 10 seconds someone was hitting the plane with a telephone pole. People were getting sick on the plane, and many people could barely walk to get off the plane.

5. The best flight I have ever been on - Years ago, we could fly business class on any international flight. I was flying from Tokyo to London on Virgin Atlantic, and my travel agent booked me in Upper Class, which she thought was business class. It was not First Class, but Virgin had 4 classes of service on that flight - economy, business, upper and first. The plane was a 747 and upper class had the upper deck. Well, where United puts something like 48 seats on the upper deck, Virgin had put 12 seats. The seats were huge, and we had 3 flight attendants just for 12 of us. I could get used to traveling like that.

 

I like #2.

I flew into Guangzhou airport this year from Hong Kong, and arrived at the front end of a taiphoon (hurricane). They must have different rules over there, because we should NEVER have been in the air. When we landed, the entire plane did a power slide. I thought we were going off the runway for sure. Maybe next time...

 

There was the time when I was on a flight test airplane we had to land at Renton airport because an earthquake while we were in the air had shut down Boeing field.

737s take off from Renton. They don't land there. But we did. Max thrust reverse, max autobraking.

But I don't know what I was worried about. Boeing landed a 747 at Renton once. Well, almost at Renton. Actually, the plane touched down just a bit short. http://www.fss.aero/accident-reports...?report_key=65

I always heard that this was some sort of publicity stunt and/or demonstration flight. Anyway, what I've been told is that the pilot was so worried about touching down on the precise end of the runway that he was very carefully watching the radar altimeter. But he forgot to adjust for the fact that the runway is a few feet higher than the lake level. He would have made a perfect landing except for that little detail.

 

Two come to mind:

1. Not really an incident, but if anyone has flown into the airport at Telluride, CO it is the second highest in the world and requires a special flight crew. The runway is on a mesa between two mountains and is not level. It goes downhill some. My most interesting (and scenic) landing. Didn't end up taking off from there, though, since they couldn't get the special flight crew and we ended up traveling two hours by van to another airport. Actually a pretty drive.

2. My ex and I took a trip to Argentina and on the way back (night flight), we encountered a storm with lots of lightning over the Amazon. A bolt struck one of the engines and something like St Elmo's Fire traveled up the wing. It was fascinating but scary. We had some turbulence for awhile, and I had visions of landing among those lovely carnivorous piranhas. My ex went and got a shot of bourbon to calm him down, which didn't really work. Some of the passengers slept through the whole thing!

Max reverse comes into play every time at National here in DC. Short runways!!

 

4,000 feet above ground, headed straight down, spinning, only a windshield and a propeller in front of me. That was spin training in a Citabria taildragger. The ultimate roller coaster ride. Scary part is I was the pilot! (instructor sitting behind me)

 

I did the same several times during my glider training. Spin recovery is a required part of the course.

Kind of fun, actually.

JonasM

 

A couple more "incidents" come to mind.

1. I was flying into Austin from Houston. This was the old Robert Mueller airport in the center of Austin, not Bergstrom airport.

Robert Mueller airport has /had short runways. The plane was landing about the same time as a blue norther was blowing in. The wind was brisk (a euphemism for howling) and the pilot was having trouble getting the plane to settle onto the runway. He tried once, and pulled up. The second time, he got over the runway and cut the power. The plane dropped like a rock. All the exit signs and tray tables came down when we hit the runway. It is pretty telling when the exit sign is swinging back and forth from its wiring.

2. I flew to Venezuela with a guy from Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR). We were going to visit a refinery there that KBR was working on. I met him at the Houston airport and we flew on to Caracas from there.

As we were landing in Caracas, he leaned over and said that KBR had arranged a driver for us, and we were not to talk to anyone else. He had the guys picture and copies of the guys passport. When we got off the plane, the first thing you see is a soldier in uniform holding a machine gun at you as you exit the jetway.

As we are walking through the terminal, people are coming up to us offering us rides. Finally we find our driver. He is HUGE - 6'5" or 6'6"
and must have weighed 300 pounds - and he was not fat. We get out to the car and he takes our luggage and leans over to put it in the trunk. His coat comes open and he has two pistols in shoulder holsters.

When he dropped us off at our hotel - he warned us - don't leave the hotel. I will be back in the morning to pick you up - don't ride with anyone else no matter what they say. That was an eye-opening experience.

Not really an airplane story but interesting none the less.

3. A couple of years ago, I flew to Israel to visit a refinery in Haifa. It was 3 weeks after Hezbollah and Israel had their dustup. If you remember, Hezbollah had been firing Scud missiles into Haifa, so everyone was on edge. There were many people walking down the street with their military weapon over their shoulder.

Working at the refinery was a real interesting situation. They took my passport and kept it for about 20 minutes - I'm sure they were searching all kinds of terrorist databases. Then I had to go down this tunnel through an X-ray machine. I went through the tunnel and was gathering my stuff up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement - in the dark behind the exit of the tunnel was a guard with a machine gun pointed at me.

There were men in street clothes wandering around the refinery carrying machine guns. And, like an NRA members wet dream, there were beautiful young Israeli women wandering around the refinery with machine pistols.

In the US, if you carry a gun onto a refinery - you get fired immediately if not sooner.

 

 

Boy, John...you've had some interesting experiences in your line of work! Not plane related, but a National Geographic photographer my ex and I met in Argentina (he was in Bariloche photographing some rare trees called arajanes) had a run in with the Shining Path in Peru. He and his group were held up and all their photographic equipment stolen. He said he was lucky to come out of it alive. We brought rolls of film back to the US for him.

 

There is just something about having a machine gun pointed at you that I'll never get used to.

You start thinking - hmmmm I hope he doesn't have a twitch all of the sudden