Any Scary Flying Stories Out There?

by Englishman 15 Replies latest jw friends

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  Englishman

  Her Ladyship and I are musing on the idea of having a weeks break in late October, so we now have to decide where we will spend it.

  It will probably be Madeira again. It's clean, warm, the people are pro-British and the island is stunningly beautiful. We love the levada walks, the food is delish and cheap, a 3 course meal for 2 with wine is less than 20 pounds. Ideal!

  'Course getting there is another story. When we went for the first time some years back, I came across this on the web:

  "Flights can take up to 4 hours from Northern Europe and any of the horror stories expounded on the Airport Santa Catarina as being one of the most dangerous airports in Europe should be dispelled: the pilots are excellently and specially trained for this short runway."

  Ha! The first time we went we took off in an Airbus 321, and we were enjoying the flight immensely. After about 3 hours, the pilots voice came over the intercom: " Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to commence our final approach into Funchal Santa Catarina. We will be using quite a steep angle of descent. This will be coupled with some pitching and rolling which is quite normal at this airport. We will use exceptionally high flare-out on landing, some bumps and heavy braking are to be expected."

  Yeah, right! As the plane approached we could see the island ahead. In fact we seemed to be headed directly at a cliff face. We appeared to be hanging almost motionless whilst the wings went up and down alternately. The engines pitched high in sound and then went low. Suddenly the plane banked right and I was stunned to see that the runway was actually next to the cliff, which appeared to be within just a few feet of the left hand wing. Gulp!

  Coming in closer, the rear of the plane went down whilst the nose went up. Yet we still continued our descent as the ground literally raced up to meet us. There was a phenomenal "BANG!" as the wheels touched, the nose dropped hard down and the engines raced as the reversers were applied. HL and I were literally hanging forward in our seat belts with the force of the forward motion. We had stopped rolling in just a few seconds. Incredible.

  The next time we flew to Madeira the flight was a carbon copy of the first. While we were enjoying our stay we learned that another plane, again an Airbus, had come in at such flared angle - nose well up, tail drooping - that the pilot had succeeded in shearing away most of the rear of the fuselage. No-one was hurt, luckily.

  Anyway, it's all going to happen again in a coupla months folks, who wants to come too?

  

  Englishman.
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  Nikita

  Looks like a beautiful place to visit, but I think I'll pass on the ride to get there!

  Nikita
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  BONEZZ

  Englishman....Sounds like I oughta' bring extra skivvies for the flight. I fly quite a bit but I'm a white-knuckle kinda guy.

  -BONEZZ

  "Hey if it's your time to go, it's your time to go !"

  "Yeah, but what if it's the pilots time to go?" -Bill Cosby
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  DakotaRed

  Always remember, EMan, any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

  Lew W
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  OUTLAW

  Hey E-man how much is a pound in US dollars or Canadian dollars...OUTLAW
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  expatbrit

  I leaned over the pilot's shoulder and took this photo when we were flying around Southern Venezuela a few months ago. Not a story, but a picture is worth a thousand words (mostly expletives).

  Expatbrit
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  Nikita

  expatbrit-

  Now that is SCARY!

  Nikita
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  yrs2long

  No thanks, E, I prefer jogging for cardiac conditioning.

  I will be looking at the international news more intently though around October.
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  LoneWolf

  Yeah, we've had a few while flying around Alaska. Here's a sample.

  One time we had attended an assembly at Fairbanks and were flying back to our home in the Eskimo village of Bethel. That's about 500 miles southwest of there.

  Three of the local brothers had come out to get our group and after the assembly were flying us back home in a small convoy of three private planes. We stopped for lunch in McGrath, checked the planes over, and took off. About a half hour out, we heard one plane's pilot yell over the radio, "ENGINE TROUBLE!!!" The pilot of my plane was a flight instructor. He did a 180 so fast that we went back past the other two without even seeing them. Finally figuring out where everyone was, we got oriented and started flying right next to the one having trouble.

  Our pilot started making suggestions. "Try carborator heat." "Keep flying as flat as possible and don't put any strain on the engine." Etc., etc. Meanwhile, we could hear the engine on the radio, and it sounded like the pistons were swapping holes.

  Our two oldest daughters and I were in the instructors plane. My wonderful little wife and our youngest daughter was in the plane having the trouble. I don't know if there are any words to describe my feelings as we flew there side by side, not more than 50 feet away, while looking into each other's eyes and not knowing if we would ever be able to hold one another again.

  I looked down. Western Alaska is one of the purest of wildernesses. There is nothing but mountains and rivers, rocks and trees, as far as you can see.

  The instructor radioed, "GENTLY, now, start turning it around a little at a time. We'll try to make it back to McGrath." He did, and we followed. That turn must have had a radius of five miles.

  About 10 minutes into the return trip, a young man riding in my plane spoke up excitedly. He was a member of the National Guard (He'd been studying and wanted to go to an assembly) and had suddenly remembered that there was an outpost of the D.E.W. line right close. "It's restricted, but ALL airfields are open in an emergency!" Needless to say, we became all eyes.

  Suddenly someone sang out, "TEN O'CLOCK, LOW!!" Sure enough, there it was at the ten o'clock position and down at about a 30 degree angle. It looked like a band-aid in the middle of nowhere, and built on the side of a mountain. Her pilot reacted so fast that no one had a chance to say anything. I looked for him and he was already gone. We stayed at altitude circling and watched them go down, side-slipping to reduce speed and gradually diminishing in size until the plane looked like a toy. I think the worst was at the last few seconds before landing. Due to the angle of our perspective, it looked for all the world like they were going to land off to one side of the strip, but at the last second, the plane seemed to miraculously slide sideways right into the middle of the landing zone.

  Now it was our turns and both of our other two planes went down and landed. Within seconds we were all surrounded by troups with rifles, fully ready to shoot. Of course, their CO's were johnny-on-the-spot and were quickly apprised of the situation. Then came the funny part.

  It seemed that the base was restricted in more than one way. It was a men-only base. My daughters were just kids, so they didn't count, but besides my wife, a freckle-faced brunette with long hair, there were two young unmarried sisters with us. One was a blue-eyed blonde and the other a green-eyed redhead. Those CO's had an awful time getting all the troups to go back to their regular duties! Har, har!!

  It turned out that the trouble was that one magnito was completely shot and the other was barely functioning.

  Eventually, we made it home, safe and sound.

  LoneWolf

  Edited by - LoneWolf on 13 July 2002 6:6:42
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  zenpunk

  I was on a flight from LaGuardia to Indy, IN on a 22 seater jet when we flew near some tornado activity. The plane flipped over and we all thought we were 45 seconds from death. That was last August. I fly constantly for my job and I'm just at the point where I don't have to hit the airport bar on my way out.