My first poo-my-pants moment in a plane

Curio

Curio

Curio

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Flying out of Detroit (amazing airport, btw...) just a short 1 hour hop over to Madison. Get about half way and notice the plane is turning quite substantially, but think nothing of it. A while later the Pilot comes on the radio and I'm thinking he'll be telling us we're coming in for the final approach into Madison. Instead he tells us we're actually coming back into Detroit because they're having problems with the hydraulics and there will be emergency vehicles waiting for us on the runway.....but there shouldn't be a problem :eek:

We came in very slowly (it seemed like it anyway) and I was dreading not hearing the undercarriage go down. I was happy to hear the "whirrr-thunk" as it lowered, but maybe it didn't come down all the way.....or lock properly! But he kept going so I guessed it must be OK. We touched down just fine and nothing collapsed (apart from my underpants...) and I saw all the emergency stuff go zooming past the windows.

All-in-all the cabin crew and ground staff made it sound like it was a total none-event, and I guess it happens quite often. Didn't stop me from bricking it tho :o I've flown a lot and this is the first time I've encountered any sort of problem! It was a CRJ-200 LR for you plane-spotters ;)

Anybody else have a similar experience?
 
I remember when i first went on a plane to Tunisia for few weeks, I was around 11
Sitting next to window.. looked out, we're like at highest we go in to sky and i saw the wing moving fast up and down wobbling and i crapped myself bad, dont remember praying so much

but i guess its normal :(
 
one time when I was flying down to london, we got hit by lightning a few times and there were fire-engines an stuff on the runway but I doubt half the people on the plane even noticed - it felt like a normal flight but the weather was superbad when we landed.
 
I love flying but I seriously reconsidered my relationship with powered flight after one short hop back from Paris. We flew through a storm and it seemed as though the rain was being blown sideways off the wings! Then the turbulence started, it was more roller coaster than plane and the air stewardess actually fell over as she was trying to get back to her seat. We actually applauded when we landed. :D

Still love flying though.
 
Never been on a plane and my first ever flight will be a long one to canada :(

Im scare, were looking at cruises lol
 
I went to Karlskrona in Sweden so I get the BA flight to Denmark (no problem there) then switch to a two engined turbo prop overwing beastie. It had two seats on each side of the isle and you could sit anywhere you wanted.

We took off and landed twice on the way there then came Ronnerby (Karlskrona) Airport.

We came in on the approach and it was more like a rollercoaster. We then hit the runway with an almighty thud, airborne, thud, airborne, thud for the last time.
The cabin crew where nervious and had that relieved laugh that you know isn't for fun. The pilot then got out and went and inspected the undercarriage. I asked one of the cabin crew and supposedly theres a set of glass rods that if you break them mean you've buckled the airframe.
 
I wouldn't say that that kind of thing is common, however we do train for it a lot and all commercial airplans have a lot of backups so a single failure can never be a major problem. For example the 737 has 3 hydraulic systems AND the controls are connected by old fashion cables, so technically we can loose all 3 systems. Flying is very safe ;)

As for the undercarriage, well we get out and inspect them EVERY flight. You'd be surprised how much the main gear can withstand, its easily the most sturdy part of the aircraft.....check out the video on youtube about the 777 doing cross-wind landing checks. 150+ tonnes landing sideways on its gear at around 150knots :D
 
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I hate planes, and have you noticed how they always put some random person near the emercency exit who ALWAYS learns forwards towards the door to look out...scares the hell outta me :(
 
.Kencs said:
I hate planes, and have you noticed how they always put some random person near the emercency exit who ALWAYS learns forwards towards the door to look out...scares the hell outta me :(
Click to expand...

How does someone leaning forward scare you? :confused:
 
my scariest moment was as a passenger of a small 2-seater, the pilot had only recently passed his exams to allow passengers and was trying to clock up some air-hours. We were flying in the alps with strong foehn wind- a very nasty mountain wind that is very gusty and unpredictable. We were flying as close to the mountains as possible to do recon on future ski descents and glacier landings (e.g. heli skiing but with a plane).

Wind was so strong that sometimes even at max safe thrust with an airspeed of 180knots we had a ground speed of less than 40 knots. At one particualrly frightening moment as we appraoch the Wildhorn a strong downflow form the peak gave aus a negative ground speed at max thrust and we were dropping altitude at 2500ft/minute with very little clearance. At that moment the canopy warning light started flashing because of the turbulence. the g-force was getting pretty intent and I had to hold down the locker of the canopy but could barely pick my arm off my lap and my vision was dimming. The pilot had to do an emergny tight turn to turn the plane so that it was facing downwind not against it. This allowed us to gain enough airspeed to climb before being smashed against the rocks. We fly out of there and in the moment of excitement pull some tight loops and cork-screws in the non-stunt plane (don't tell anyone).


Was fun afterwards, but damn, I thought planes were way more stable. But I'm glad you can really just throw them about the place and when you get slammed by wind and the plane plummets its ot instant death.
 
I kinda get scared on flights these days, what with security nuts etc.

Old geezer sat next to me made a big fuss last time I flew to NL, he deliberately didn't switch off his phone the entire flight.
 
Blinkz said:
As for the undercarriage, well we get out and inspect them EVERY flight. You'd be surprised how much the main gear can withstand, its easily the most sturdy part of the aircraft.....check out the video on youtube about the 777 doing cross-wind landing checks. 150+ tonnes landing sideways on its gear at around 150knots :D
Click to expand...

I can't remember where I've got this from but isn't the 747 main gear stressed to withstand a 45 degree angle to the centreline upon touchdown?
 
I think the undercarraige needs a manual check when landing passes 2G on the big jets. That's some serious force. I've had many bumpy landings, both in light aircraft and in the big stuff. The worst landing was a recent trip back from Gran Canaria in an Airbus. Here's the thread.
 
I fly a lot with work, but when I came back from Thailand, flying over Pakistan and Afghanistan, I experienced the scariest turbulence of my life, as said above, it felt like a rollercoaster and I literally closed my eyes, put earplugs in and waited for it to stop! I lasted about an hour too!
 
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