The time I was most terrified though was extreme turbulence. I was flying back to Portland from somewhere back east, via Seattle. Coming into Seattle on a larger airplane was really really bumpy… probably the worst turbulence I’d experienced up to that point, but I fly a lot so I’m used to turbulence.
But the puddle jumper from Seattle to Portland was terrifying. I considered not even boarding based on how bad the turbulence was going into Seattle, but I had to be at church the next day as I was teaching Sunday school and I didn’t want to leave the youth director in the lurch and I figured the pilots weren’t going to risk their lives if it was really a problem.
But oh man… I had the air sick bag out of the holder and opened out and in close proximity of my mouth the whole time, and I was fervently praying to God to forgive my sins and take me into heaven because I really thought that was moments away. I was praying for the skills of the pilots, the airworthiness of the plane, the souls of everyone else on board… it was the most intense praying of my life.
I wanted to write to my mother and tell her that I loved her, but I didn’t feel comfortable setting the air sick bag down long enough to do that, nor did I want to stop praying.
It was orders of magnitude worse than the prior flight which was already the worst turbulence I’d experienced. And I fly a lot. I can’t even describe how bad it was.
But we landed safely. I took the air sick bag with me as I was still feeling pretty queasy, and I noticed a lot of passengers were carrying air sick bags… many of them full.
That’s also the only time I’ve ever experienced airsickness.
I haven’t been too terrified, but I do have a good story.
Me and the wife were on a small regional plane, like 2 seats on one side, 1 seat on the other type, sitting next to each other in the 2-seat side. Turbulence begins, she grabs my left hand with her right and holds on for dear life. I’m pretty calm and collected, using my other hand to hold my book and turn the pages. After about twenty minutes of this, I realize just holding one hand isn’t helping her, so I put the book in the seat-back pocket in front of me and offer my other hand.
“Here, hold my other hand too, it’ll help you feel better.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t let go.” - I look and see she’s gripping the bottom of the seat with her other hand.
I once flew out of Newark into an oncoming storm. We were the last flight allowed to get out before the storm. I have never felt turbulence so bad, hope to never again. Things were falling out of the overhead bins, we were hitting air pockets and the plane was plummeting periodically, flight attendants were visibly nervous. It turned my fear of flying into a true anxiety.
Yes, this was what my flight was like… except for the flight attendants. I have no idea what they looked like because they were never once permitted to unbuckle.
Oh, yeah, they were buckled in, but I happened to be sitting near one. I always look to see their reaction now when I decide if I should freak out about turbulence, hah.
Don’t remember any really scary flights, one was when there was turbulence and I had the sense that the plane was flying faster than normal. The passenger on the window seat next to me got up to use the lavatory, was nervous that he was going to try to get back in his seat and make me stand up at a time when it was clearly not safe to do so. Fortunately there were some empty seats in the back (those were the days when that was a more common occurrence than now) so he took one of those for the rest of the flight.
I remember on one trip, flying into ATL, we had been in a holding pattern for some time due to thunderstorms in the area.
We finally were freed from the pattern, and the pilot came on the intercom letting us know that it was finally our turn…before saying what sounded like “uh oh” as we hit some serious chop.
It was a bumpy approach, and we landed hard. Once we were clear of the runway, the pilot came on again: “folks, I apologize for my earlier outburst. Just to let you know, that was the second worst weather I’ve flown in during my 30 years as a pilot.”
I was in a plane one time that got hit by 100 MPH cross winds. All I heard was BAM BAM BAM. Turbulence makes me nervous, but this was fluffin’ scary!!!
Although I am sympathetic to chemical preparation for commercial aviation, the all-inclusive cost of a drink at the airport bar is about equal to a six-pack at the local liquor store. And if I load up on beer before boarding, I will need to piss three times during flight.
Perhaps the worst one was flying into Atlanta on the night of that deadly tornado outbreak in Tuscaloosa. Cross winds in ATL were fierce, and the plane seemed to be pointed at about a 45 degree angle to the runway to compensate while making the approach. Pilot made the first landing attempt and pulled up it seemed like a few feet above the runway to go around again. Did the exact same thing again. People were screaming both times. He announced on the PA that we could only try that one more time and would then have to divert due to conditions/fuel status. The 3rd time was the charm.
I have a few more doozies, but that one was the worst since everyone could sense the danger and it went on for a long time.
Agree on not having to use the lavatory if I can help it, at least for shorter flights where you never know how much time you’ll be able to get out of your seat and navigate around turbulence, beverage service and other people waiting to use it. For long flights it’s less of a concern since I like to get up and move around anyway.
It’s fun to wake up in the middle of a longer international flight riding along a 100mph jet stream. The larger jets usually have a pretty smooth ride, but waking up completely disoriented in the middle of that is definitely anxiety inducing.
Not quite the same thing, but my grandparents described flying to Hawaii in the 1950s. At that point LAX - HNL was seriously stretching the range limits of the passenger airplanes. It was an overnight flight, and you could recline the seats pretty far so you could sleep overnight. When they woke up and breakfast was being served, my grandfather noted that the sun was on the wrong side of the airplane.
Sure enough half an hour later or so the captain made an announcement: they’d encountered more wind than normal so they weren’t going to have enough fuel to get to Honolulu. They were heading back to LA and they’d try again for Honolulu that night.
Can you imagine??? Apparently this was totally normal and turning back happened on something on the order of 5-10% of LAX-HNL flights.
