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my worse flgiht was also turbulence related. Myself and other group members were on an Aerolineas Argentinas B737 (LV-JMY 6/11/96) from Asuncsion in Paraguay to Buenos Aires. Took off mid pm for us to catch the flight back to London via Madrid. All was going well until top of descent into some dark clouds and some gentle bumps. As we got lower the tubulence got steadily worse until one sickening drop which had any loose items thrown up to the cabin roof. This included a passengers briefcase that ‘hovered’ in mid air for what seemed like ages but was probably only a few seconds. Also included a passeger whose seatbelt had broken but luckily he was not injured. My trouser leg was torn by the seat in front of me as it had a sharp edge to its frame and on looking found a small cut to my leg. As we continued the roller coaster I could see the ground through gaps in the cloud. At BA (at the time) the procedure was to join overhead and then route to whichever runway was in use and as we flew over the airport I knew it would not be much longer before we landed.
As we turned finals we could see the burnt out wreckage of an aircraft that had crashed a couple of weeks earlier. I was sat on the right side behind the wing and had a good view of the runway lights on account of the drift angle being used. This was kicked off at the last moment and we made a very smooth touchdown but could certainly feel the aircraft slipping/skidding on the very wet runway. Fellow pax applauded as we turned off the runway so we did the same.
We got off the plane and headed for a bar as a drink was very necessary ! before getting on the next plane a few hours later.
As we were sat in the departure area a MD11 landed and something did not look quite right – it was very fast and landed a long way down the runway. Shortly afterwards we could see a lot of red lights heading that way as the MD11 had run off the runway as it as turning off.
Have had many flights since then but none have come that close in terms of the violence of the turbulence we were in.