The worst flight you've been on

[Some user]

Not too fond of flying meself but I'm getting better all the time. Was coming back from Spain last year and half the plane was getting sick cos the tubulence was so bad. Usually you get no more than a minute of it but it was about an hour of absolute hell - even the hostesses looked a bit queasy which is always a bad sign. Loads of people kissed the ground when they got off in Cork!

[Natty Dread]

Flew direct from Dublin with Aer Lingus. The flight got very bumpy along the coast of Croatia and we were really tossed around. Loads of people were puking and kids were crying. As we descended there were strong cross winds coming down off the mountains and just as we were about to touch down the right wing flipped up and the pilot decided to thrust back up into the air.

We stayed in a “holding pattern” for twenty minutes while he decided what to do and the air hostesses could barely cope with the amount of sick bags being handed to them. Eventually we were told we were going to land in Split – about half way up the country. We had to get on a bus for four hours then which was a balls especially as it was dark (it’s a coastal drive and would have been beautiful in day light).

When we got to Dubrovnik instead of dropping us off in the town the bus driver insisted on dropping us at the airport instead about 20kms away – all very fine but it’s a tiny airport and there’s no public transport or taxis operating at 2am!

Eventually he was convinced to return to Dubrovnik town with the passengers on board. Lots of people had been hoping to get accommodation when they got to the town but there wasn’t a soul around (most people pick up accommodation from locals who approach arriving coaches shouting ‘sobé sobé’ which I think means ‘rooms’.

The pilot had told us we couldn’t land because of the wind and that no other planes were landing. The guy who had been waiting to collect us saw our plane take off but then witnessed a Russian flight landing immediately afterwards without any problems. I suppose I’d rather be alive than take the risk – people would have shat themselves if we had tried to land in Dubrovnik a second time I think!

[Da blonde one]

Coming back from Puerto Rico during the summer.

Was up all night drinking and then straight to the airport. Was dying sick with a chest infection, sun stroke and an asthma attack coming on.

Turbulance was bad but not that bad. I had to sit next to some couple tonging the tonsils off eachother. While my friends were scattered all over the plane.

Slept sitting forward with my head on the chair infront. No one woke me when we were landing so the plane hit the ground with an all merciful thud and my neck drove into the chair I was resting on. It actually nearly broke my fucking neck.

That was the worst flight of my life. Never ever drink and fly people. Arrive alive

[Roachy]

Coming back from Puerto Rico during the summer.

Was up all night drinking and then straight to the airport. Was dying sick with a chest infection, sun stroke and an asthma attack coming on.

Turbulance was bad but not that bad. I had to sit next to some couple tonging the tonsils off eachother. While my friends were scattered all over the plane.

Slept sitting forward with my head on the chair infront. No one woke me when we were landing so the plane hit the ground with an all merciful thud and my neck drove into the chair I was resting on. It actually nearly broke my fucking neck.

That was the worst flight of my life. Never ever drink and fly people. Arrive alive

Whoa! Sounds horrible!

I used to hate turbulence until somebody pointed out to me that if you compare it to a bus driving around the city its hardly bumpy at all. You know those ancient buses that make a frightening amount of noise when you go over a pothole! You’re doing about 30mph but an aircraft is going 20 times faster so the bit of turbulence you get is tiny in comparison. Still a bit nervous when it gets bad though.

I think the airport do courses for people who are nervous of flying?

[jungle]

Being prepared for a crash landing because of problems with the gear...

But really that one only turned bad at the very end and we landed normally anyway.

The worst flight was Dublin-London when we took off. Hit a thunder storm about 5 minutes later and went through it almost the whole way to London. The aircraft was up and down like a roller coaster. As I said afterwards, it would have been fun if I'd been guaranteed that we were going to come through it okay.

[helmutderhaas]

Alot of those russian pilots are used to landing in absolute shite weather, we were on a Czech Airlines flight to Prague, the lunatic landed with a strong crosswind and a a rake of snow .. although the touchdown was perfect.

An aerlingus flight i was on to amsterdam was all over over the bloody place coming into schiphol with much better weather conditions.

I never get too worried about landings anyway, If your gonna crash your gonna crash :)

[storysham]

paris to cork, aer lingus. landing in a monster of a storm. the plane was all over the place, im a regular flyer and love it but i was really scared that time.

another time the pilot bounced the plane off the runway in CDG.

[jungle]

An aerlingus flight i was on to amsterdam was all over over the bloody place coming into schiphol with much better weather conditions.

Amsterdam is actually quite a nasty place for landings. Between the flat landscape and having water on 2 sides of it, it is susceptible to crosswinds right down to the level of the runway.

[PigCapitalist]

Amsterdam is actually quite a nasty place for landings. Between the flat landscape and having water on 2 sides of it, it is susceptible to crosswinds right down to the level of the runway.
I word - Katmandu! At least Schipol is flat!

[jungle]

I word - Katmandu! At least Schipol is flat!
I see your Kathmandu and raise you Honingsvåg.

The runway is on a severe slope and is shorter than should be used by jets, but they get around this by landing into the slope and taking off going down it.

[Shower O' Langers]

Derry-Birmingham with Aer Arann.

There was only me and one ould fella on the plane (and it was one of those tiny ones). Hit mad turbulence about half way over that continued most of the way, with just the two of us rattling around the plane. The air hostesses stayed buckled up for the entire flight - I would have died thirsty.

[doppellanger]

Alot of those russian pilots are used to landing in absolute shite weather, we were on a Czech Airlines flight to Prague, the lunatic landed with a strong crosswind and a a rake of snow .. although the touchdown was perfect.

An aerlingus flight i was on to amsterdam was all over over the bloody place coming into schiphol with much better weather conditions.

I never get too worried about landings anyway, If your gonna crash your gonna crash :)

Landings are usually automatic nowadays. The pilots sometimes land it themselves, just to keep in practice. If weather conditions are bad, it's more likely to be autopilot landing.

[Stuck in Dumpland]

Worst flight ever for me (and i'd imagine the poor people next to me) was from Buenos Aires which was supposed to go to London. I managed to get mouldy drunk the night before, sleep thru the alarm and arrive late to the airport just missing the flight. They put me on an Air France flight to Paris with a connection to London free of charge which was sound of them. While sitting around waiting for that the hangover from hell kicked in. Managed to board the flight ok but the minute it lifted off my stomach turned and i had to make a dash to the toilet as i had no sick bag. The hostess started shouting to me in french to sit down (i presume that's what she was saying) but if i didn't make it to the toilet i was gonna puke all over the plane. When she saw my face she just jumped outta the way. Stuck in the toilet then for 15 minutes getting sick. Then after i emerged i realised i was getting a severe case of diarrohea...back into the toilet for ages. Came out apologising to the waiting queue and went back to my seat and fell asleep for 5 mins...woke up needing to drastically get to the toilet again only for the queue that had formed while i was stuck in there to be still waiting there. This continued for the whole journey, all 15 hours or so.

When we arrived in Paris we were late and i ended up missing my connection. This was only after someone from the ground staff had run thru the airport with me to help me make the connection. On getting to the gate and seeing the flight had left my stomach decided it had to empty itself after the exertion of running. They put me on a later flight to London where after hearing my story they upgraded me to business class which i thought was great. 4 hours later i boarded the flight only to be sitting next to 2 air hostesses who were coming back after the weekend and were boozing away which on smelling turned my stomach to mush. Landed at heathrow and then had to run to make the connection to Cork, which, again, made me puke my ring up on getting to the boarding gate!

All in all, a tremendously horrific flight experience that resulted in me getting home 14 hours later than expected!

Funny now to look back on it tho!

[Allergic!]

and we have a winner!

[Ciotóg]

Flight into Lukla, Nepal, from Kathmandu.

It was just a small plane, so we could see over the pilot's shoulder and out the front window. The "runway" (it was made from cobblestones) was surrounded on three sides by sheer mountains, kinda like a bowl. So to land, the pilot flies directly at one of the mountains, and just at what seems like the very last second before hitting it, veers sharply off left in a severe dive. Slams off the runway a couple of times, bouncing along it, hoping to stop before the chicken-wire at the end that may stop plans from falling off a 1 mile high cliff.

The next plane that came in after us actually hit the chicken wire because the pilot wasn't aggressive enough with the mountain bit.

[the puerto rican feen]

Chicago to Puerto Rico (the caribbean wan, for Da blonde)

Just after taking off, at a steep angle, an old man had a heart attack, about 2 rows behind me, his wife and daughter started wailing, they dragged on to the aisle and a doctor started performing compressions, all I could hear was the screaming and the doc counting the chest compressions, we landed as quickly as possible but he was dead at that stage I think.

Lucklily I was ahead of him so all seats were able to go back in to the terminal, all the people behind him had to sit there for about 2 hours while the paramedics removed the body.

[Da blonde one]

Chicago to Puerto Rico (the caribbean wan, for Da blonde)

Just after taking off, at a steep angle, an old man had a heart attack, about 2 rows behind me, his wife and daughter started wailing, they dragged on to the aisle and a doctor started performing compressions, all I could hear was the screaming and the doc counting the chest compressions, we landed as quickly as possible but he was dead at that stage I think.

Lucklily I was ahead of him so all seats were able to go back in to the terminal, all the people behind him had to sit there for about 2 hours while the paramedics removed the body.


Oh my god

[jungle]

Just after taking off, at a steep angle, an old man had a heart attack, about 2 rows behind me, his wife and daughter started wailing, they dragged on to the aisle and a doctor started performing compressions, all I could hear was the screaming and the doc counting the chest compressions, we landed as quickly as possible but he was dead at that stage I think.

The sis was on a flight from Hong Kong to London that had 2 medical emergencies. There were unscheduled stops in Lahore and Warsaw. That remains her only experience of Pakistan and Poland

[Natty Dread]

Worst flight ever for me (and i'd imagine the poor people next to me) was from Buenos Aires which was supposed to go to London. I managed to get mouldy drunk the night before, sleep thru the alarm and arrive late to the airport just missing the flight. They put me on an Air France flight to Paris with a connection to London free of charge which was sound of them. While sitting around waiting for that the hangover from hell kicked in. Managed to board the flight ok but the minute it lifted off my stomach turned and i had to make a dash to the toilet as i had no sick bag. The hostess started shouting to me in french to sit down (i presume that's what she was saying) but if i didn't make it to the toilet i was gonna puke all over the plane. When she saw my face she just jumped outta the way. Stuck in the toilet then for 15 minutes getting sick. Then after i emerged i realised i was getting a severe case of diarrohea...back into the toilet for ages. Came out apologising to the waiting queue and went back to my seat and fell asleep for 5 mins...woke up needing to drastically get to the toilet again only for the queue that had formed while i was stuck in there to be still waiting there. This continued for the whole journey, all 15 hours or so.

When we arrived in Paris we were late and i ended up missing my connection. This was only after someone from the ground staff had run thru the airport with me to help me make the connection. On getting to the gate and seeing the flight had left my stomach decided it had to empty itself after the exertion of running. They put me on a later flight to London where after hearing my story they upgraded me to business class which i thought was great. 4 hours later i boarded the flight only to be sitting next to 2 air hostesses who were coming back after the weekend and were boozing away which on smelling turned my stomach to mush. Landed at heathrow and then had to run to make the connection to Cork, which, again, made me puke my ring up on getting to the boarding gate!

All in all, a tremendously horrific flight experience that resulted in me getting home 14 hours later than expected!

Funny now to look back on it tho!


That sounds like absolute hell. And now your stuck in Dumpland as well. We don't know the half of it biy.

[Trish]

Well it's not so much a bad flight with regards turbulence etc, that I've had experience of.

Was flying back from France once year - it was a charter flight and the plane was huge - an American style one - I'm not very up on my aviation terminology!!! Anyway, there was a woman opposite me, who was obviously terrified of flying - how she ever got over to France was a mystery to me! She started screaming whilst we were taxing and then continued to scream the higher up we got - cold cloths had to be fetched etc etc and she had to be mopped down - she then was shouting about how she was going to 'break the window to get out'...people had to physically restrain her. Everyone was getting panicky. There was a slight bit of turbulence and she started shouting 'we are going to die, we are going to die'. She then got a panic attack and they asked was there a doctor on board that could assist her....as it happens Cork was fogbound and we were diverted to Shannon Airport....again she screamed the aircraft down when she heard that because she thought something major was going to happen. I was never so relieved when we reached terra firma.

Luckily I've never been that scared re turbulence...only other time I've been scared is when I've seen a few shifty looking people on the plane.

[Tube a Pringles]

Well it's not so much a bad flight with regards turbulence etc, that I've had experience of.

Was flying back from France once year - it was a charter flight and the plane was huge - an American style one - I'm not very up on my aviation terminology!!!.

Oh that's gas......heh heh heh.....

[Ciotóg]

What's an American-style plane? One where every seat comes with a giant ice-cooler?

[Trish]

No the ones that are bigger with three aisles of seat instead of two aisles of three that you'd have on short haul

[captainshamrock]

Was on a charter job from NY to Dublin years ago after 2 weeks on the piss. Was asleep before we took off but woken up after about 3 hours by people around me crying and praying. The plane was getting absolutely battered in a storm. Eventually the pilot come over the PA and says he's 'going to drop down in altitude and see can we make it through the storm that way.'
See if we can make it through! That inspired loads of confidence and the praying got worse. It was either throttle the old biddy next to me or give in to the body and go back to sleep so I dozed off and woke up to clapping when we landed. I've never got on a plane without a hangover and it works great. You sleep like a log and you don't have time to be nervous about all those bumps and creaks. Downside is you miss the ocaisional flight and if you time it wrong you can wake up in the middle of a flight unable to sleep, paranoid and hungover.

[jungle]

No the ones that are bigger with three aisles of seat instead of two aisles of three that you'd have on short haul
And it operated into Cork...

Which means it was almost certainly an A330*, which is a European plane ;-)



*There is a small chance it was a Boeing 767 though...

[Patrick Hill]

i was in the Philippines,my trip home involved a nightmare drive in the middle of the night in a pick-up truck, with no lights except my diving torch, with four flat tyres.
At the airstrip they jump-started the aircraft with a Jeep battery and I had to hold the pilot's unsecure door closed for the eighty minute flight over the Sulu sea. When we landed almost sideways the door was to much to hold on to and it fell off.

[i_didnt_do_nawtin]

Jumping off the garden shed with a black plastic bag as a parachute. It was grand until the end.

[mr m]

Flying from Boston to Ireland a few years ago and was planning on bringing back a 1/4 of some fine weed home. Got a bit paranoid coming up to customs so decided on buying a can of coke and eating the lot of it. Very bad idea. Was convinced we were going down on a few occasions. Strangely enough I finished the flight with a lot of empty seats around me. Live and learn I suppose.

[EL TORO]

Was heading to Austria about 6 years ago during the ski season, I was working for a ski company at the time and we had all the crew from Today fm on board incl Dempsey and that fella who used be the lead singer in 'something happens'. Anyway everyone was getting lashed on the free booze as there was only about 40 of us on the plane. Everything was going fine until we hit turbulance over the alps, the plane dropped about 2000 feet, the lights went out, drinks went all over the place and people instantly started holding hands etc, it was really surreal. Anyway it turns out that this was a regular occurance for that time of year, except the captain thought it best not to advise anyone! Ever since i've become a little more nervy on planes. Should probably stop watching 'Air crash investigation' i suppose.

[raZor]

I had to fly to Knock once!

[DKirby]

Was flying into Vegas one time.....flight was smooth, we touched down.....and then we expected to taxi around on the tar-mac to the gate, but after we touched down, the plane kept on going with some fericous speed, and then we made a sudden stop, jolted eceryone in the cabin.

Not to sure how airplanes work, but I could of sworn that the pilot pulled a hand-brake stop

[storysham]

This one....

http://www.boredtodeath.co. uk/vid345.php

[corkgirl]

The worst flight I was on was an internal flight in the states from Atlanta to Portland. We were flying along happy as Larry and then suddenly the plane did a huge jolt upwards. Everyone's drinks went flying in the air all the overhead bins opened - people were screaming. The plane was tossed all over the place sudden jumps up and dives and general rollercoaster-esque maneuvres and the air hostess looked quite stricken running up the aisle trying to close the overheads to stop stuff clocking people. I turned to my boss next to me who is far more worldly wise and better travelled than me to see if he had experienced turbulence like this and he was ashen faced and no he hadn't. The guy on the other side was a redneck-whiskey-drinking-just-out-of-prison lookeylikey and he just kept shouting 'We're goin down, we're goin down'. It finished as suddenly as it happened and the pilot came on very calmly saying sorry about that I'm sure you're all wearing your drinks but It's all over and don't you worry. Needless to say I was happy when we landed.