Scariest flight or moment

CK

Well-Known Member
Just wondering what your scariest moment in an airplane was. I haven't been flying very long but mine was going into BWI with level 5 stroms a mile off the field. Probaly shouldn't have gone in there but I trusted the pilot.
 
Trust the pilot or not..it wouldnt matter if Chuck Yeager himself was at the controls, flying through a level 5 is going to ruin your day....
 
Haha yeah. It was on the other side of the airport and we where only 3 miles off the airport. Still scary tho. We weren't in the clouds tho so we didn't have to worry about turbulece but we did have some wind shear on final. I thought it was pretty neat after it. We were the only ones talking to Potomac and all the airlines were shut down in line. We were the last ppl in there for 1 1/2. We still should have gone some were else.
 
No offense here but someone who would a) allow their (or a) 14-year old to sit right seat in a two pilot aircraft and b) try to beat a level 5 thunderstorm to an airport - while said 14-year old is in said right seat - is not someone who you should be trusting.

I don't particularly care that you're getting flight time - great - but the decisions and situations you've presented on this board thus far are either half-truths you're using to try and impress folks or outright dangerous situations that you should feel lucky you have survived thus far.

No one knows four people who have been killed in the same type of aircraft unless the people that person is hanging out with are reckless and or foolish and or stupid. And if that's the crowd you're "learning" to fly from I feel for you. I really do.

Just my humble opinion.
 
BACK TO MAIN SUBJECT....

I've had a couple of close calls in my days. One was only a couple of years ago, I was at an uncontrolled field just having a good time showing off my skills to my dad. I usually dont fly gear up aircraft and at the time had very little experiance in gear up. Was turning base to final at Le Gros Memorial in Crowley, LA. I announced my intentions and noticed an aircraft on the taxi way taxing up for takeoff which is very rare (I would say Le Gros sees about 5-20 aircraft per week). On short final (about 75 ft of the surface) the other aircraft was like "Jesus Christ! Aircraft on final go around gears up and locked". I shortly hesitatd looking at my gear lights was like holy sh** maxed power and barely missed scrapeing rwy 4 at Le Gros. Was so pissed at myself for carelessly forgetting to scan the checklist. Owe well learned from it...I've also had a couple of close calls due to weather but nothing to write about.
 
who said I was in a 2 pilot airplane. I was in an MU 2. Your right tho we souldn't have tried beating in that storm. We did have radar and if we were 5 minutes later we would have gone to martin state, and about the 4 people who were killed 2 were cocky ppl who every one new would die some day and the other 2 were just co-pilots at the wrong place at the wrong time. Thankfully they didn't have passengers on board.
 
Nothing terribly glamorous here. I had a very gradual electrical failure in a 172 once. It wasn't a big deal, but at the time I had forgotten that the fuel quantity indicators are run off the electrical system. So, I became extremely nervous as I watched my fuel guages slowly dwindle about 20 miles from the airport. I landed with my tanks 3/4 full, thinking that they were practically empty. Oddly, as soon as my main gear hit the ground, the electrical system kicked in and I breathed a sigh of relief. I soon began laughing at my silly misconception about the fuel guages. An important lesson was learned - cycle the master switch repeatedly in that situation.
 
I heard a story about the same thing happening to a student on a cross country trip. The aircraft had a alternator failure so as the battery drained and the fuel needles went to zero, this person thought that it might be a good idea to do a precautionary landing in a field because he/she thought that the fuel was almost gone. Oooops. I guess it turned out to be a nice emergency landing, but unfortunately there was no emergency.
 
Yeah, at the time I thought about where to ditch, but I figured I'd wait for the engine to actually quit before commiting to that course of action. I guess it kinda helped that I was over a metropolitan area and ditching would have been very problematic (hmmm, I-5 or the bay?). Of course, the engine never quit so I just landed normally.
 
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I heard a story about the same thing happening to a student on a cross country trip. The aircraft had a alternator failure so as the battery drained and the fuel needles went to zero, this person thought that it might be a good idea to do a precautionary landing in a field because he/she thought that the fuel was almost gone. Oooops. I guess it turned out to be a nice emergency landing, but unfortunately there was no emergency.

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This same exact thing happened to a student at UND back in April. She had her PPL and was working on some of her commercial requirements. Needless to say when she put it down in a field only 10 or so miles from the airport, the top brass at UND was not happy. Not sure what they ended up doing with her though.
 
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This same exact thing happened to a student at UND back in April. She had her PPL and was working on some of her commercial requirements. Needless to say when she put it down in a field only 10 or so miles from the airport, the top brass at UND was not happy. Not sure what they ended up doing with her though.


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Matt, I think she was required to take the 112 test course and then she was evaluated in front of a board.

A couple a weeks ago, and instructor here was flying low and clipped some power lines. He lied to UND and the FAA and said it was a bird strike. Needless to say, he is getting fired from UND and the FAA is deciding wether to revoke or suspend his certificates.
 
That would have to be the inadvertent spin I got into on my 2nd out-of-the-pattern solo flight--and I hadn't been taught spin recovery.
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I was attempting MCA and was in the worst possible configuration for a recovery--power in, 40° of flaps. Stall horn's blaring, left wing drops, ailerons aren't doing squat and into the spin I go.

Staring at the rotating dirt in the windscreen, power and full flaps still in, my saving grace was that my buddy who I rode down to the airport with (who was further along in his training, in his XC phase, I think--nowadays, he's one of those ascot-wearing Viper drivers
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) and I had just so happened to have discussed spin recoveries on the drive down to PVU that morning (we were both from SLC) and in one of those rare moments of clarity, I remembered that discussion and stomped on the opposite rudder and then pulled out of the resulting dive.

Remember, this was back in the days when people routinely soloed in 7-10 hrs, underprepared for most emergencies like this. In retrospect, the reason for my stall/spin was that I hadn't yet been taught proper rudder control and was undoubtedly woefully uncoordinated in flight.

It rattled my cage pretty good, but makes for a good "I learned about flying from that" story.
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Mine would be last night.

Did my preflight on the BE95 (Travel Air) and upon opening the Main tanks, I notice that they are not full. I (wrongfully) surmise that they are 3/4 full and thought we'd be fine for the 1.5 hour training lesson.

Off we go. We do a failed engine after t/o, three VOR approaches, and steep turns, then head for the barn.

We're about 4 miles from home base and crossing over the coast over the Bay when the right engine goes RRRRRrrrrr and the plane yaws right dramatically. BUT, then it winds back up with a rrrrrRRRRRR and the IMMEDIATELY RRRRrrrrr and the yawing again.

Thinking that it was my instructor "failing" the engine on me, I say "whoa" sarcastically and go into my checks.

Mixtures, Throttles, Props full.. flaps up, gear up.....

...when I look over at my instructor and he's wide-eyed and says " <font color="red"> Dude! That wasn't me!! </font>

He then follows up my check with one of his own .. only at warp speed. I say "your plane" and let him have it.

He says "let me try something" and he switches the right from "Main" to "Aux" and the right engine comes back to life.

I was pissed at myself and will NEVER make that mistake again!! Live and learn...

..better said:

Learn and LIVE.

R2F
 
I've gotta say that mine was taking off out of dallas on one of doug's Delta flights (he was flying the plane)... and i guess the ATC guys were trying to hussle everyone out of there (big backlog of planes)... and as we're taking off, there were some big wakes or something cuz we thrashed from one side to the next and sitting in back, it seemed like we rotated more than a 30 degree pitch on both sides which was just scary!!

doug can agree that after the flight, he said he was majorly freaked and didn't how they pulled out of it (experience is my guess!!)...

goes to show, you shouldn't take off too soon before the plane in front of you is the required distance otherwise you freak out all of your pax (literally)... I still get nervous when we just go into a simple turn now a days...
 
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I've gotta say that mine was taking off out of dallas on one of doug's Delta flights (he was flying the plane)... and i guess the ATC guys were trying to hussle everyone out of there (big backlog of planes)... and as we're taking off, there were some big wakes or something cuz we thrashed from one side to the next and sitting in back, it seemed like we rotated more than a 30 degree pitch on both sides which was just scary!!


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From what I hear this is just the way Doug flies!! HA HA!!! I could not resist!
 
Gotta say it was my first solo cross country last december, coming back from Cape May, NJ toward philly and crossing over a VOR enroute. While conciously reminding myself to watch for extra traffic around the VOR and during my scanning outside of the cockpit, a white blur came out of nowhere at about 2 oclock at my altitude (3000'). I was able to see the tail as it passed and that's it. My heart stopped for about a minute after that!
 
Why weren't you talking to Dover or Philly? I live over on DE25 by ATR (waterloo). Do you live in Cape May?
 
I would have to say my scariest moment was on a American Airlines Super 80 when we were about to land at DFW...it was on May 3, 1999...&amp; if any of you remember it was a day when texas, kansas,...&amp; all of those states got lots of bad weather &amp; tornadoes...well...we happened to be in one of the storms up in the air...well...the lightning show was great &amp; it almost felt like i was on the worst roller coaster of my life..even though it was really on a airplane in the air...well..the clouds were very dark...it hailed...u could here it beaten up the aircraft.....also...we dropped like a thousand feet like in a few seconds....felt like my body was dropping but my bones &amp; skin were staying up...well...lots of heavy severe turbulance...the pilot tried to land at DFW twice but we had no luck...so we had to make a emergency landing at Houston...well...we sat their two whole hours...the flight which i was on..RDU-DFW...us usually about 2:00 hours long...maybe a little more or little less...but anyway..we were on that same plane for about 14 hours...finally...after the storms cleared we headed from Houston to DFW...&amp; were fine..then we missed our flight to Hawaii...so we had to spend the night in san fransisco &amp; then the next morning finally took off for hawaii...everytimei go to hawaii...there is always something trying to prevent my family &amp; i from going.....scary man...nothing worse than that i have been on so far.
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I would have to say my scariest moment was on a American Airlines Super 80 when we were about to land at DFW...it was on May 3, 1999...&amp; if any of you remember it was a day when texas, kansas,...&amp; all of those states got lots of bad weather &amp; tornadoes...well...we happened to be in one of the storms up in the air...well...the lightning show was great &amp; it almost felt like i was on the worst roller coaster of my life..even though it was really on a airplane in the air...well..the clouds were very dark...it hailed...u could here it beaten up the aircraft.....also...we dropped like a thousand feet like in a few seconds....felt like my body was dropping but my bones &amp; skin were staying up...well...lots of heavy severe turbulance...the pilot tried to land at DFW twice but we had no luck...so we had to make a emergency landing at Houston...well...we sat their two whole hours...the flight which i was on..RDU-DFW...us usually about 2:00 hours long...maybe a little more or little less...but anyway..we were on that same plane for about 14 hours...finally...after the storms cleared we headed from Houston to DFW...&amp; were fine..then we missed our flight to Hawaii...so we had to spend the night in san fransisco &amp; then the next morning finally took off for hawaii...everytimei go to hawaii...there is always something trying to prevent my family &amp; i from going.....scary man...nothing worse than that i have been on so far.

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Man, I know what you mean. I've flown into DFW once or twice but I've heard they can really screw you in bad weather by there new ATC system DFW_APP is equipped with. It gives you a computerized rwy suggestion, I've heard that Approach has a real hard time turning it off and it can lead to some really nasty choices. Doug, you fly out of there regulary do you find it a problem in severe/moderate weather?
 
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