October 27, 2007
Your worst flying experience
Written by Cindy Kirk in Jaunty PostI’m in NYC for the weekend but it took me a while to get here. Yes, my early afternoon flight on Wednesday was delayed because bad weather in the morning had backed everything up at the NY airport. It was 11 pm before I got to New York. But I flew Midwest Airlines (where every seat is first class) and got homemade chocolate chip cookies (made on board and still warm) on both legs of the flight, so I was happy. (I also plotted out another book while waiting in the airport). Though I was a bit concerned because of the rain on the east coast, we encountered very little turbulence.
Still, the experience got me to reminising about my worst flying experience. It’s hard to pick just one. There’s the time I was on a small commuter jet (that seated about 50) and we got caught in a thunderstorm. The flight was so rough I had to hold onto the seat in front of me (think roller coaster ride in the sky). Or there was the time I flew in the sleet and snow. The plane was supposed to land in Chicago…but we had to land somewhere in Iowa because the plane was running out of fuel and we couldn’t get the okay to land at OHare.
I know you have to have had equally bad or probably worse experiences….care to share?
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Shana Says:
Gosh, Cindy! I’ve never had any experiences that bad. But one time I was on a flight and seated next to this guy who had the headphones to his ipod plugged into his ears. I guess he ahd the same song on repeat because the whole 4 hours he sang “I’m in love with a stripper” in this high whiny voice. I wanted to kill him.
Laura Says:
It was a flight to Las Vegas. We were almost there and we hit some “turbulence”. Like you described, it was like a roller coaster in the sky, we would lose altitude very quickly (it would have been “fun” if I didn’t think we were going to crash and die) and dip to the sides. We could see lightening just outside the window. People were screaming and praying. It was very scary.
We landed fine but found out later it was a freak storm that came with little or no warning. And we were flying through it. Not something I ever want or need to experience again.
Rainy Says:
Late ’80’s. It was on a small computer plane to Newark. The date was February 3. Sound familiar? It’s the day the music died. Yeah, on the way to the airport I’m listening to “American Pie” and the DJ is talking about the anniversary of Buddy Holly’s plane crash on a small plane.
I hate small planes because I am too aware of what’s going on. Instead of a door separating passengers from pilots they just had a curtain. At one point there was a sort of pop noise coming from outside the plane. Something that sounded like “Shit!” came from behind the curtain and there was a lot of frantic hand movements.
Never found out what happened, but we landed safely.
Helen Says:
I don’t have a lot of flying experience only flown a couple of times and no hassles either time but I sure am glad I wasn’t on the planes with some of you Ladies I would have been terrified.
Have Fun
Helen
brownone Says:
We took a trip to New York to visit my grandparents. Well, on our return home the flight (which was connecting in Atlanta for a two hour stopover), our plane boared over one hour late from Laguardia. We said to ourselves that this was actually cutting it close but we’d probably be able to just barely squeek to the other flight. Well, we’re all buckled in and sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off. Two hours later, after the air conditioning being turned on and off and the pilot PROMISING that it would be fifteen more minutes until we were cleared for takeoff we were STILL sitting on the tarmac. When he finally got on and told us that ATC was telling him it would be at least one more hour, we started taxiing down the runway fifteen minutes later. Needless to say, we missed our connecting flight in Atlanta and had to wait two more hours for another available flight. We started out our travel that day from New York at 8:00 in the morning and actually did not get home until midnight the next morning!
Cindy Kirk Says:
It’s strange but all these flying experiences actually made me feel better about mine.
Thanks for sharing!