Think I said it on the original flight thread. My mate went to Moscow with Aeroflot in the early 90’s and the toilets didn’t have doors, just a curtain that you pulled across
just had one... flight from London to Manila via Riyadh. Got to Riyadh to see a 16 hour delay. No staff on hand, nobody to inform what to do, where to go. Found out through the BBC that it was due to a typhoon in Manila. No food, no accomodation, no nothing in a basic airport.
Flight then gets a further delay, nothing to do with weather and sets off 23 hours late.
Missed my connecting flight in Manila of course and then waiting for my bag and...,
They lost it....
said it would be one or two days, here Iam 8 days after setting off and I'm still waiting...
First and only ever flight with Saudia... the most incompetent, most useless airline on the planet. And I thought the Filipina air crew were joking when they said it was a crap company.
Been lucky enough never to have experienced a scary flight. The worst was an aborted take-off from Malmo to Stansted. Returned us to the gate and resulted in a 3-hour delay. Because of this, I missed the Everton game (2-0 - El Karkouri and HH).
Travelled to Caribbean on holiday sitting on the isle of the middle row of seats, next to two Geordies going to a wedding with a crowd, all scattered around the plane. They spent the whole trip drinking and shouting to each other. Even when obvious they had enough to drink, they were sold more, once spilling some over me. Not a pleasant trip
Another holiday trip, again I was in the isle seat in the middle row, next to a man with a little boy. I put up with the boy playing games on his I-player with the sound full on, even though it was a night flight, but when the boy went to sleep he laid on me, when I complained to his father, he could not understand why I was moaning.
On a flight home from Europe and plane had to emergency land in English Channel. Left hand wing ripped off and emergency chutes deployed. Managed to safely get family into dinghy and home safely.
Is it @PragueAddick who frequents a pilots forum? He must have picked up some good tales from there
Yes it's me, and here is the forum. It's very reassuring, because they are contemptuous of the idea that most of the above is any kind of problem . Flying in turbulence is simply not discussed, because to them it's just part of the job. Media constantly accused of making mountains out of molehills and woe betide anyone who makes assertions not backed up by strong evidence of professional flying experience. If there is an actual incident they are all over it, but a lot of tech terms will deter us non-pilots. They were very good on the fatal Sala flight, though.
This thread disturbs me because reading it I realise I've been very lucky in the last 40 odd years of fairly regular flying, which means I'm due something nasty!! But a mate of mine has a cracker. His name is Tony, ex of this parish and also of Bromley ,and also ex-Army including some secretive stuff in NI, which lends credibility to his reaction to the incident as he told it, because he was on BA 2069, a Jumbo which stalled when a deranged passenger stormed the cockpit. A few weeks later back in Prague Tony dropped in that he'd been on that flight. I said something like "Blimey that must have been terrifying!" He looked pensive, as if trying to work out the meaning of this new word "terrifying" and then replied "well I was asleep down the back and then I noticed we were going down rather fast, and I thought, hmm, this is interesting..but when i found out what it was all about I was really disappointed that I wasn't up front to help out" Honestly, from anyone else you'd think, bullshit, but if you know him you know this is pretty much how he played it.
Think I have been lucky from an air safety perspective but have had the odd funny experience relating to passengers.
I remember a Qantas flight from Sydney back to Jakarta, where I was living at the time. Immediately after we touched down and the plane was taxiing to the terminal an Indonesian guy emerged from one of the toilet cubicles. The flight attendants mouths fell open as they realised he had been sitting on the toilet as we landed and somehow they hadn’t noticed it had been occupied.
Also recall an overnight Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Sakhalin Island in the East of Russia. Had a fairly rough looking Russian next to me in business class who basically drank Cognac on tap for the whole 8 or 9 hours of the flight. I think the flight attendants were too scared to refuse to serve him. Luckily he was an amiable drunk who insisted in engaging in conversation with me in Russian even though my Russian was limited to saying please and thank you. Didn’t manage to get a wink of sleep as when he wasn’t talking at me he was leaning over me from his window seat to get the attention of the attendant to bring him another drink.
This didn’t happen to me, but to teacher friend and it’s not really a bad flight experience, as such.
She was flying from Frankfurt to Moscow on Aeroflot just after the “collapse” of the USSR, etc.
Plane taxiing for take off and this female passenger decides she wants something from her hand luggage so she unbuckles, gets up and starts unpacking her hand luggage! The stewardess asks her over the intercom to please sit down and buckle up, an instruction that she simply ignores. So the chief stewardess unbuckles and comes down the aisle to have words, at which point the passenger turns around and says “We’re free now! I don’t have to do what you tell me!” She refused to sit down until she had what she wanted and then sat down and refused to buckle-up! The latter part happening while the plane was racing along and taking off.
Definitely the worst flight I've ever had. Many years ago I had regular helicopter flights from the Shetlands to production platforms (oil rigs) way out in the North sea. This particular flight had 19 passengers all togged up in survival suits etc. and two crew. We were about 50 minutes into a one and a half hour flight when I suddenly felt my face being hit by a flailing arm. The bloke sitting next to me was having a fit. His arms were thrashing at the cabin walls and me. I was dazed as some other blokes in the flight saw what was happening and jumped across the cramped cabin to hold onto the bloke and shouted at me to tell the pilots what was happening. I made my way to to pilots and shouted above the engine noise that a bloke was having a fit and they needed to radio the platform that we needed assistance. My fellow passengers managed to hold the unfortunate bloke on the floor. We arrived at the platform and the heli-deck crew stormed the helicopter pulling us passengers out the way making their way to the poor bloke who was just returning to consciousness. I glanced back as I left the aircraft to see a medic injecting the poor bloke. Apparently he had been flying for many years but on this occasion the rotation of the helicopter blades through the sun had created a strobe effect and triggered his fit. It was a really frightening experience and I I took the return flight some days later with great trepidation.
Returning from a long weekend with my 8 year old, we flew overnight and should have landed at Gatwick. Over the Irish Sea we were informed by the Captain that the plane was being diverted to Birmingham because of a large storm. The plane turned left and flew on. After about 40 minutes I thought we must be past Birmingham and looking down through a gap in the clouds I could see Old Trafford. The plane flew on and we eventually landed at Glasgow. I was shattered but had to be in work at 8am the next day. Glasgow airport was in chaos with two thousand people milling about and no flights. I decided to take a taxi and head for Central Train station, only to find out there that all trains had been cancelled. Desperate I went to a hire car company and managed to get the only car they had left. A tiny 1100cc fart box. I had to drive to Gatwick with a car sick kid to collect my own car before heading home. I made it to work the next morning and managed to stay awake all day.
Just about to land at Gatwick once and the engineers fired up and we effectively took off again, circled and landed.
I've always assumed that another plane was on the runway when it shouldn't have been
Unlikely. Probably a cross wind. Standard procedure and fairly normal.
Well I can burst that theory.
Flying back from a winter holiday in Tenerife, it was thick - and I mean thick - fog when we arrived back at Gatwick.
Our plane was coming into land when the engines roared and the plane shot up suddenly. It was terrifying.
As the plane levelled out, the pilot said in the most calm voice you could imagine " Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very sorry that we had to abandon our landing approach but air traffic control advised us there was a plane on the runway we were due to land on that was about to take off. Nothing to worry about and we will resume our landing approach again soon"
I've often wondered if rhe pilot was really as calm as he sounded or a nervous wreck like me!
Just about to land at Gatwick once and the engineers fired up and we effectively took off again, circled and landed.
I've always assumed that another plane was on the runway when it shouldn't have been
Unlikely. Probably a cross wind. Standard procedure and fairly normal.
Well I can burst that theory.
Flying back from a winter holiday in Tenerife, it was thick - and I mean thick - fog when we arrived back at Gatwick.
Our plane was coming into land when the engines roared and the plane shot up suddenly. It was terrifying.
As the plane levelled out, the pilot said in the most calm voice you could imagine " Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very sorry that we had to abandon our landing approach but air traffic control advised us there was a plane on the runway we were due to land on that was about to take off. Nothing to worry about and we will resume our landing approach again soon"
I've often wondered if rhe pilot was really as calm as he sounded or a nervous wreck like me!
I was coming into Heathrow from Baltimore and we did a (my only) go-around, as (the pilot told us) a SA 747 was being very slow to exit the runway...
Just about to land at Gatwick once and the engineers fired up and we effectively took off again, circled and landed.
I've always assumed that another plane was on the runway when it shouldn't have been
Unlikely. Probably a cross wind. Standard procedure and fairly normal.
Well I can burst that theory.
Flying back from a winter holiday in Tenerife, it was thick - and I mean thick - fog when we arrived back at Gatwick.
Our plane was coming into land when the engines roared and the plane shot up suddenly. It was terrifying.
As the plane levelled out, the pilot said in the most calm voice you could imagine " Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very sorry that we had to abandon our landing approach but air traffic control advised us there was a plane on the runway we were due to land on that was about to take off. Nothing to worry about and we will resume our landing approach again soon"
I've often wondered if rhe pilot was really as calm as he sounded or a nervous wreck like me!
No theory to burst really
I said "unlikely", as the OP had "assumed" and go-arounds as a result of cross winds (and other meteorological events such as visibility) are far more frequent than go arounds due to aircraft encroachment.
In your experience, I'd imagine that your pilot was very calm because he would have been - this is a fairly frequent and standard procedure for which they are comprehensively trained and drilled.
I should add that the fact that it was foggy on your landing was probably irrelevant. Air Traffic would have full visibility of aircraft positions, as well as the need for the captain to have full visibility of the runway on final approach.
Flying back from NYC as a teenager on a school trip, must have been 2003. We’d binged on crap food for a few days and it all came to a head on the flight home.
Air con had broken on the plane before take off so we were stuck on the runway at JFK for a bit. Quite a few of us were ill, being sick etc, but I was by far the worst. Couldn’t stop being sick at first, to the point where I’d cleared my row of four. They almost landed the plane in Greenland because so many of us were ill.
Luckily (or not, for me) there was a doctor on the flight and they gave me some meds which stopped me being sick. They stopped it coming out at that end at least. I was so spaced out that I’d basically sh!t myself in my sleep without realising until I got home. Home meaning, my house, so the entire flight, coach transfer from the airport and drive home with my parents.
Not sure I’ll ever top that, had a few dodgy internal flights in Thailand a few years back where I thought we were going to crash but that’s about it.
Definitely the worst flight I've ever had. Many years ago I had regular helicopter flights from the Shetlands to production platforms (oil rigs) way out in the North sea. This particular flight had 19 passengers all togged up in survival suits etc. and two crew. We were about 50 minutes into a one and a half hour flight when I suddenly felt my face being hit by a flailing arm. The bloke sitting next to me was having a fit. His arms were thrashing at the cabin walls and me. I was dazed as some other blokes in the flight saw what was happening and jumped across the cramped cabin to hold onto the bloke and shouted at me to tell the pilots what was happening. I made my way to to pilots and shouted above the engine noise that a bloke was having a fit and they needed to radio the platform that we needed assistance. My fellow passengers managed to hold the unfortunate bloke on the floor. We arrived at the platform and the heli-deck crew stormed the helicopter pulling us passengers out the way making their way to the poor bloke who was just returning to consciousness. I glanced back as I left the aircraft to see a medic injecting the poor bloke. Apparently he had been flying for many years but on this occasion the rotation of the helicopter blades through the sun had created a strobe effect and triggered his fit. It was a really frightening experience and I I took the return flight some days later with great trepidation.
As a addition to the above in another lifetime, I used to do a fair bit of wizzing around the North sea in helicopters. I remember on one occasion working in a oilfield with four production platforms in a straight line miles apart. I completed my task on the first platform and needed to visit the furthest installation. I was booked on the oilfield bus. A small two man helicopter, one which our older posters would remember in the T.V. series 'The Whirlybirds'. I boarded the small aircraft, wearing my survival suit, headphones etc. and the stuff needed to carry out my task on the distant platform. As we approached our destination a fog bank suddenly appeared. We circled looking for the helideck without much luck. The pilot waved his hand and shook his head gesturing we were going to return to the platform we had taken off from. Unfortunately the fog was so dense it was difficult to see anything. I was beginning to worry about how much fuel these small helicopters carried, not enough to reach land. So we hovered, the pilot chatting on his radio and suddenly after which'd seemed like hours but was probably minutes, we descended through the fog and a ship with a Heli-deck appeared on which we landed. "That's it for today" said the pilot as I delicately enquired when we were likely to continue our journey. "Where did you just come from"? said the deck hands. Luckily we were only stuck overnight able to enjoy the hospitality of our adopted ship and continued our journey the next day. Was squeaky bum time for a while.
Had a few dodgy journies,but taking pried of place was an internal flight in Cuba from my hotel down south to Havana.I am sure the airline was called "Banana Airways " and consisted of old Russian Aeroflot planes.It looked like something someone had quickly put together with sellotape,and I seriously considered not getting on it.It had to be 30 years old. Journey to Havana was ok if a little bumpy,coming back in the dark,and a storm,the old bowels were struggling to cope,diabolical,I have never seen so many people find god so quickly.Even the one hostess on board downed tools and strapped her self in.Needless to say the old "all inclusive " got a seeing to when we got back.
Had a few. Flying back from the Canaries on a flight that left Gran canaria at 03.30 in the orning, I stretched out to try and sleep a bit a put my legs in the ails. One of the stewardesses walde past and literally kicked them back under the seat. One from Munich to Sofia was a breeze until we went into the clouds on the descent, where the turbulence was absolutley crazy. Bounced around like a kite in a storm, and when we popped out of the cloud base and had the lights in Sofia as a reference, you could see just how awful it was. We got off and I assumed there would be a gale blowing, but the lightest of breezes was all there was. Horrible.
Ironically both of the ones that come to my mind were similar. Flew Balkan Airlines many moons ago and the weather was so bad we never made to Sofia, but landed in a military base (whose location I am unaware of). Security staff absolutely bladdered and a terrible overnight stay on the floor of some hall.
Flight into Lanzarote, plane all over the place, escorted into runway by fire engines.
Airport closed for 36 hours after our landing. One of those massive trees that they have over there (tall fuckers with a bit of greenery at the very top), uprooted in rental property garden and demolished pool. Thought that was a tough start until I bumped into a few families who had to trek from Gran Canaria, across fuerteventura by sea/land, to get there. Thing was, apparently some travelled by RyanAir, and if I remember correctly, the airline basically wiped their hands with the whole issue of landing in the wrong destination, although weather left no other option. Would have thought the airline had a degree of responsibility?
Flew Air China to Beijing in 1992 and halfway across the Himalayas hit some really shit turbulence. Anybody not strapped in was thrown like rag dolls around the cabin and one bloke flew right over my head and landed on the bloke behind me. Only 8 of us on the flight spoke any English so didn't have a clue what was going on. People getting oxygen and first aid, others smoking (yep still allowed on planes then) and the bogs didn't work and still four hours away from landing. Was watching Turner and Hooch at the time and I still don't know the ending of the film. Always strap myself in on a plane journey now.
Ah, you've enjoyed the unique experience of Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Did they still have the smoking zone on, er, the right hand side of the plane..the whole plane...? I always regarded those Tupolev 154's with trepidation but some pilots on theat forum argued that they were basically solid and rugged planes and if they fell out of the sky it was usually down to maintenance in Soviet Russia. I was still very happy to find in 1991 that I was on one of the first flights of their brand new Airbus 319, rebranded Balkan Air, no smoking at all, if I recall, and all the crew generally showing off like they were driving a flash Merc cabriolet down the Kings Road.
Flight back from Israel. In keeping with my entire stay, was forced to walk through security five times and interrogated (again). When boarding opens, an Arab family of four rushed to the front and ran onto the plane. Bit odd. I finally got on and was sat in the row adjacent to them at the very back of the plane.
As the plane starts taxiing, the mother starts hitting her husband who is holding the two kids in his lap. Husband ignores wife and is looking the other way as if nothing is happening. Wife then falls onto the ground in the aisle screaming that she can't breathe. Husband literally refuses to acknowledge her and sits with kids looking out the window. Eventually air stewards come to give the wife oxygen and ask husband if he's flying with her, to which he says yes, turns round and looks passively out the window again - the only person on the flight now disturbed by her behaviour. Wife continues screaming and demanding to get off the flight, husband still ignoring her as she implores for the plane to turn back.
Plane heads back to the gate, wife helped off flight, husband straggles behind holding kids and some bags he's taken from the overhead lockers.
Pilot says we will wait twenty minutes before taking off again. Cue pandemonium. Everyone has seen how this odd family were first onboard and then saw the bizarre scenes. This being Israel the assumption is some form of terrorist subterfuge was going on. Multiple people are shouting down the plane that they will not take off until every bag on the flight has been individually checked by military police. The crew cave into the request and we take off five hours later.
Fantastic country to visit but simultaneously a nightmare.
Comments
The worst was an aborted take-off from Malmo to Stansted. Returned us to the gate and resulted in a 3-hour delay.
Because of this, I missed the Everton game (2-0 - El Karkouri and HH).
I've always assumed that another plane was on the runway when it shouldn't have been
Left hand wing ripped off and emergency chutes deployed.
Managed to safely get family into dinghy and home safely.
Not really.
This thread disturbs me because reading it I realise I've been very lucky in the last 40 odd years of fairly regular flying, which means I'm due something nasty!! But a mate of mine has a cracker. His name is Tony, ex of this parish and also of Bromley ,and also ex-Army including some secretive stuff in NI, which lends credibility to his reaction to the incident as he told it, because he was on BA 2069, a Jumbo which stalled when a deranged passenger stormed the cockpit. A few weeks later back in Prague Tony dropped in that he'd been on that flight. I said something like "Blimey that must have been terrifying!" He looked pensive, as if trying to work out the meaning of this new word "terrifying" and then replied "well I was asleep down the back and then I noticed we were going down rather fast, and I thought, hmm, this is interesting..but when i found out what it was all about I was really disappointed that I wasn't up front to help out" Honestly, from anyone else you'd think, bullshit, but if you know him you know this is pretty much how he played it.
She was flying from Frankfurt to Moscow on Aeroflot just after the “collapse” of the USSR, etc.
Plane taxiing for take off and this female passenger decides she wants something from her hand luggage so she unbuckles, gets up and starts unpacking her hand luggage!
The stewardess asks her over the intercom to please sit down and buckle up, an instruction that she simply ignores. So the chief stewardess unbuckles and comes down the aisle to have words, at which point the passenger turns around and says “We’re free now! I don’t have to do what you tell me!” She refused to sit down until she had what she wanted and then sat down and refused to buckle-up! The latter part happening while the plane was racing along and taking off.
Many years ago I had regular helicopter flights from the Shetlands to production platforms (oil rigs) way out in the North sea.
This particular flight had 19 passengers all togged up in survival suits etc. and two crew.
We were about 50 minutes into a one and a half hour flight when I suddenly felt my face being hit by a flailing arm.
The bloke sitting next to me was having a fit.
His arms were thrashing at the cabin walls and me.
I was dazed as some other blokes in the flight saw what was happening and jumped across the cramped cabin to hold onto the bloke and shouted at me to tell the pilots what was happening.
I made my way to to pilots and shouted above the engine noise that a bloke was having a fit and they needed to radio the platform that we needed assistance.
My fellow passengers managed to hold the unfortunate bloke on the floor.
We arrived at the platform and the heli-deck crew stormed the helicopter pulling us passengers out the way making their way to the poor bloke who was just returning to consciousness.
I glanced back as I left the aircraft to see a medic injecting the poor bloke.
Apparently he had been flying for many years but on this occasion the rotation of the helicopter blades through the sun had created a strobe effect and triggered his fit.
It was a really frightening experience and I I took the return flight some days later with great trepidation.
Flying back from a winter holiday in Tenerife, it was thick - and I mean thick - fog when we arrived back at Gatwick.
Our plane was coming into land when the engines roared and the plane shot up suddenly. It was terrifying.
As the plane levelled out, the pilot said in the most calm voice you could imagine " Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very sorry that we had to abandon our landing approach but air traffic control advised us there was a plane on the runway we were due to land on that was about to take off. Nothing to worry about and we will resume our landing approach again soon"
I've often wondered if rhe pilot was really as calm as he sounded or a nervous wreck like me!
Thinking about it, I think I did it for charity.
I said "unlikely", as the OP had "assumed" and go-arounds as a result of cross winds (and other meteorological events such as visibility) are far more frequent than go arounds due to aircraft encroachment.
In your experience, I'd imagine that your pilot was very calm because he would have been - this is a fairly frequent and standard procedure for which they are comprehensively trained and drilled.
I should add that the fact that it was foggy on your landing was probably irrelevant. Air Traffic would have full visibility of aircraft positions, as well as the need for the captain to have full visibility of the runway on final approach.
I remember on one occasion working in a oilfield with four production platforms in a straight line miles apart.
I completed my task on the first platform and needed to visit the furthest installation.
I was booked on the oilfield bus.
A small two man helicopter, one which our older posters would remember in the T.V. series 'The Whirlybirds'.
I boarded the small aircraft, wearing my survival suit, headphones etc. and the stuff needed to carry out my task on the distant platform.
As we approached our destination a fog bank suddenly appeared.
We circled looking for the helideck without much luck.
The pilot waved his hand and shook his head gesturing we were going to return to the platform we had taken off from.
Unfortunately the fog was so dense it was difficult to see anything.
I was beginning to worry about how much fuel these small helicopters carried, not enough to reach land.
So we hovered, the pilot chatting on his radio and suddenly after which'd seemed like hours but was probably minutes, we descended through the fog and a ship with a Heli-deck appeared on which we landed.
"That's it for today" said the pilot as I delicately enquired when we were likely to continue our journey.
"Where did you just come from"? said the deck hands.
Luckily we were only stuck overnight able to enjoy the hospitality of our adopted ship and continued our journey the next day.
Was squeaky bum time for a while.
Journey to Havana was ok if a little bumpy,coming back in the dark,and a storm,the old bowels were struggling to cope,diabolical,I have never seen so many people find god so quickly.Even the one hostess on board downed tools and strapped her self in.Needless to say the old "all inclusive " got a seeing to when we got back.
Flew Balkan Airlines many moons ago and the weather was so bad we never made to Sofia, but landed in a military base (whose location I am unaware of). Security staff absolutely bladdered and a terrible overnight stay on the floor of some hall.
Flight into Lanzarote, plane all over the place, escorted into runway by fire engines.
One of those massive trees that they have over there (tall fuckers with a bit of greenery at the very top), uprooted in rental property garden and demolished pool.
Thought that was a tough start until I bumped into a few families who had to trek from Gran Canaria, across fuerteventura by sea/land, to get there.
Thing was, apparently some travelled by RyanAir, and if I remember correctly, the airline basically wiped their hands with the whole issue of landing in the wrong destination, although weather left no other option. Would have thought the airline had a degree of responsibility?
Ah, you've enjoyed the unique experience of Balkan Bulgarian Airlines
As the plane starts taxiing, the mother starts hitting her husband who is holding the two kids in his lap. Husband ignores wife and is looking the other way as if nothing is happening. Wife then falls onto the ground in the aisle screaming that she can't breathe. Husband literally refuses to acknowledge her and sits with kids looking out the window. Eventually air stewards come to give the wife oxygen and ask husband if he's flying with her, to which he says yes, turns round and looks passively out the window again - the only person on the flight now disturbed by her behaviour. Wife continues screaming and demanding to get off the flight, husband still ignoring her as she implores for the plane to turn back.
Plane heads back to the gate, wife helped off flight, husband straggles behind holding kids and some bags he's taken from the overhead lockers.
Pilot says we will wait twenty minutes before taking off again. Cue pandemonium. Everyone has seen how this odd family were first onboard and then saw the bizarre scenes. This being Israel the assumption is some form of terrorist subterfuge was going on. Multiple people are shouting down the plane that they will not take off until every bag on the flight has been individually checked by military police. The crew cave into the request and we take off five hours later.
Fantastic country to visit but simultaneously a nightmare.