Bad Flight?

RE: Bad Flight?

Skog – When de-icing you have to turn the bleeds off (stopping air conditioning and pressurisation) in order to stop the fluid getting into the cabin (it can generate a dreadful burning smell). If the fluid was coming through the underside of the doors then that was the fault of the guy operating the rig. I guess it was a 200 series you were on as they have huge gaps around the doors (just like the 1-11).
Also, if the runway is of a reasonable length and the terminal you are going to is near the far end you would normally choose to select minimal autobrake and exit further down as this gets you to the terminal quicker improving the block time of the flight. The added bonus to this is that the brakes end up much cooler and so don’t enforce a long cooling off period before the next departure. Surprisingly it does not reduce brake wear as with carbon brakes wear is proportional to the number of applications rather than how hard or long they are applied for. As a result when taxiing with carbon brakes (as opposed to aircraft fitted with steel brakes) you will often ride the brakes to avoid repeated applications.

RE: Bad Flight?

My worst was in a DC9 (or MD80). Iberia flight from Alicante to Heathrow and it really was bad. Im not sure whether it was turbulance or what but we were all over the place. Then we went into a sudden nose dive, very steep. The stewardess with the trolley broke her arm and the trolley went flying down the alley and into the flight deck door, breaking most of it!! We were all very scared!!.

RE: Bad Flight?

I had a bad return flight, both ways! 🙂

I was going to Stansted from Oslo Torp with Ryanair in early spring 1999. Torp is a tiny airprort about 2,5hrs drive south of Oslo.

Some of the worst snowfall in years was coming down, and also very late in the year for snow anyway (March).

Although im interested in planes, im not a spotter and i dont know as much as most of you guys, and back then i knew even less.

When we finally approaced Torp, it turns out the aircraft could not land bechause of the snow, and had been redirected to Oslo Gardermoen, 40 minutes NORTH of Oslo. So we just had to go back.
After a bus ride on icy roads with the movie Speed (!) on the telly, we finally got to the Airport.

When we boarded the aircraft i was met by the most unpleasent people i have ever come across in the service profession. They were obviously tired and well cheesed off, but hey so where we!
The plane was not cleaned either and was very dirty.

Finally we get moving, and when we got to the de-icing area, the captain had not pressurised the cabin, so the de-icing fluid started to flow thru the door. I did now know why that happened at the time and got very very nervous. It didnt help that there had been talk in the newspapers about that stuff being toxic and dangerous to the soil at the airport.

But we got to London in one piece.

And then, the return flight. This was four days later, and even though there still was snow chaos. This was the biggest snowfall in years, and it sure felt that way coming into Torp. We were thrown around and i could hardly see anything outside the aircraft.
We still touched down, but it seemed like the pilot did not use the brakes bechause we kept going and going and going. At this time i was sure we would end up in the woods at the end of the short runway at Torp, and pretty sweaty. It was extremely bumpy and the plane also swung from side to side. It sounded like the engines revved up heavily, did he reverse them perhaps?

But we stopped, and it actually turned out we had quite a lot of runway left.

That’s the most scary flight i’ve ever been on 🙂

Im flying today btw, BA 7903 from MAN to OSL. 🙂

RE: Bad Flight?

1.Beginning of February this year, BA 747-400 landing at Heathrow after a 13 hour flight from Tokyo Narita.
It just happened to be the day Britain experienced some of its windiest weather in years. One minute we were floating along in the sun above the cloud base, as soon as we descended through the clouds it went as dark as hell and we were were thrown around all over the place. Overhead bins opened up and numerous sick bags were used.
We landed on the 3rd runway which I think is only used in exceptional weather(?).
The pilot as you would expect did a great job but me and my partner felt sick for a good two hours afterwards.

2. Taxying at Bangkok AF A340-300 in September 99 steady rain turned into a torrential downpour. We then turned on to the runway and to this day I can’t belive we took off in that weather. It took an age to rotate and the spray and sound of the surface water was something else.
When we eventually arrived back at Manchester we saw on the news a Qantas jumbo had landed 10 minutes after our take off and had ploughed off the end of the runway on to the golf course! This was apparently down to a combination of the bad weather and incorrect brake speed selection. Felt like we’d had a lucky escape.

RE: Bad Flight?

I’ve had 2. The last one was the only time I’ve been on a DC-9, a -51 of Air Canada from YUL-EWR. Only an hour flight, this one full of turbulance the entire hour. It rocked and rolled. This woman that was sitting behind me and to the right, I thought she was going to hyper-ventilate, she was breathing so hard and pumping her arms. The worse one was only a 15 minute flight, but scary nonetheless. It was on an Emb-120 Brasilia from ONT-LAX. There was a strong westerly wind more formerly know as the “Santa Ana’s” that we frequently get in the Inland Empire. Typical departures at ONT are on 26R/L to the west and that takes you right into the landing patern at LAX only 50 miles to the west which are on runways 24R/L or 25R/L. Because of the winds, we took off into them on runway 8L. Right after takeff, we made a sharp right turn with the wind blowing profusely into the left side of the fuselage. Lets just say, the plane was being blown sideways along with it’s forward movement. It was by far the strangest feeling I’ve even had in an airplane. The rest of the flight, the Brasilia was bouncing up and down, left and right. Once we got off the plane and into the bus that takes you to the main terminal from the remote terminal, the 20 or so of us that were on the flight all had that “thank god” look about us, even though I’m sure we were never really in danger. An interesting flight, nonetheless.

GD1

RE: Bad Flight?

I vividly remember, as a 5 year old, flying from LHR to Bahrain on an L1011-1 of Gulf Air.

The aircraft developed an engine fault and we diverted to Cairo.

No drama, except the Egyptians were very cruel to us. Because it was unexpected and unplanned, we were not allowed to deplane. There was no air conditioning, no food/water and it was reaching nearly 40C outside. The doors were open, but there was no breeze. It was very dangerous – Cairo airport could have lost millions of $ if an elderly pasenger had died and relatives had litigated. I still hate Cairo as a result! I felt very ill.

There was the typical British camaraderie – songs, anti-Egyptian stuff, people passing round any cans and bottles they had. The air crew were great about it. They stayed with us, though I suspect they would have been allowed off.

BA, strangely, flew another L1011 in the next morning (we were allowed of at roughly 11pm, after landing at about 9am) and we were taken on to Bahrain.

Lesson was: BA and Gulf Air will look after you. Airports, especially Cairo, couldn’t care less about you. I learned that lesson as a very sick 5 year old!

RE: Bad Flight?

Let’s not forget that the airlines mentioned so far do not necessarily have any connection with the fact that the flights penetrated turbulent areas. Turbulence feels exactly the same in a BA Airbus as it does in a charter one!

RE: Bad Flight?

My worst one was KLM JHB to AMS. The seat belt sign was hardly off. If you like roller coasters then this was the flight. Big difference to the out bound flight where we had no turbulance whatsoever it was like a stroll in the park.

RE: Bad Flight?

My worst flight was also from Gerona; on the return leg of a flight to Manchester on a Monarch 757. The Costa Brava was experiencing some very heavy storms that evening and the flight home was awful. I never feel ill travelling but came very close to throwing up. There weren’t a great deal of ‘bumps’; it was more up, down, left, right, manoeuvres (or perceived anyway) and I felt as sick as a dog!

Second worst was an approach into Copenhagen on an SAS F50. The approach was over water in gale force winds (mid-winter) and my little turbo-prop was being thrown all over the place. The plane repeatedly kept dropping and twisting and at times I thought we were just going to get thrown onto the ground. Not very nice.

RE: Bad Flight?

Mine was with Alliance Air B732 from Bhopal(central India) to Delhi, It seemed like this a/c could tare apart anytime.

RE: Bad Flight?

My first and only flight with British Airways between Heathrow and New York was absolutely fearsome. This was my first flight on a Boeing 747 and at that time the aircraft flew across the Atlantic instead of over Iceland and Greenland. There was about four or five hours of severe turbulence and several passengers thought we would not make it to New York. I was only five but my Mum tells me about it often.
Another flight was a bit bouncy but not as scary. This was an Air New Zealand flight between LA and Sydney. We were flying at night and I kept seeing flashes of lightening in the distance but luckily we weren’t hit.

RE: Bad Flight?

Hi all

2001 – AIH EGCC-LGIR – was just v turbulent n afta a 7 hr wait n eating the free food in first 5 mins was v hungary :d – n was forced to w8 another 2 hours as every time trolleys were brought out captain to the crew to return them afta a couple of rows!!!

RE: Bad Flight?

My family once chartered a Piper Aztec because we were flying on a very, well, unserved route. Flying low over the African bush in the mid day heat, it does get bumpy at times. I felt as sick as I ever have!

RE: Bad Flight?

Yes I have… In 1999, with Airtours… Coming back from Gerona in Northern Spain… Took of is terrible weather.. never seen a storm like it in my life, lightening shooting straight in to the ground… Very bumpy flight until we got over central France. Felt a bit ill, as it was the first time I had ever flown with Turbulance that bad.