Worst Flight

Corpsmaide

Corpsmaide

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Corpsmaide
What was your worst flight, either as PIC or passenger? This should be a flight in which every time you think about it you experience those nerves again.

Just curious.
 
Flying is like sex--the worst I've ever had was still pretty good.

'Nuff said.
 
Shooting first but getting a reply...they missed...
 
The worst flight I had was on Saturday. I was doing some night flying after a VERY long time. I think its been around a year. I took my dad along to get current again and finish some of the night requirements for my Commercial. First airport, I couldn't find the runway. I forgot to call the tower on base. Luckily it wasn't that busy so the controller was pretty relaxed. Second airport, had a hard time finding it asked for an pattern entry that did not make any sense. I got all turned around and sounded like an idiot on the radio. Coming back to my home field, again had a hard time finding the airport and when I landed, I almost went off the runway into the grass thinking it was leading into the taxiway. Overall just a bad flight for me. But I did learn a lot
 
Took off into MVFR conditions and tried to work my way through a front. The clouds closed in around me and I thought about landing on what I thought was a road below me. Set up for final and realized the road was surrounded by razor wire. It was a service road to a prison. :eek:

Since landing was not a good idea I decided to climb. I started out at 1000' msl and popped out on top at 9,000'. I picked up ice for about 1000 feet so it was nice to see the sun. :eek:

I knew I was lucky to be on top. I remember my instructor telling me if you ever get into trouble remember the "4 C's". Communicate, confess, conserve, and comply. ATC worked me to an area with ceilings of 3000' agl. I was now at 13,000' msl to avoid clouds. :eek:

I started my decent from 13k into the clouds, back into the icing level, and broke through at 4000' msl. It was good to see the ground after 2 hours of being stuck on top. :eek:

ATC asked me to land at the next airport, but I decided..... "Sorry, radio is acting up, thanks for your help!!" and headed to my next fuel stop, and on home.

Somewhere along the way I decided I needed to get my PPL. At that point in time I was only a licensed ultralight pilot. :mad2:
 
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Today was pretty bad. Crosswind over some trees made short field landing practice very sporty. I called it a day, with my last student, when my landing was worse then his. My fellow coworkers didn't blame me at all.

Overall it still was a good day to fly, very blue and clear. Plus, shocking my private student with unusal attitude training was entertaining. He also did a perfect "CFI ASR" approach to short final. :thumbsup:

Worst flight was doing my instrument training a few years back. We were doing a ILS to minimums over some mountains. On FAF inbound I let the localizer go full deflection and I kept the descent going. After about 15-20 seconds the clouds started getting darker and the ride was getting quite rough. I looked at my instructor and said "I'm getting a bit worried". He yelled that we should went missed already and took the plane over. MEM CTR punished me by putting us into a 45 min hold for inbound traffic. :mad2: I guess I kinda deserved it....
 
Lindberg said:
First lesson. I yaked in the plane. :(
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I had a friend do that while I was in the back seat. The CFI and I pushed her head out the window and held it out there until she convinced us she was finished. Let's just say the CFI and I had red marks on our faces when we landed.
 
My first encounter with unreported wind shear on short final scared the bejeebers out of me. Pretty steady 15 knot direct headwind on final. Set up for a nice short field approach. Then the wind quits DEAD over the fence. A near-perfect stabilized short field approach turns into a stall warning and pitch down.

It's somewhat comforting that the throttle was firewalled before I realized what was happening, and the mush was straight ahead.
 
Mine was close to 30 years ago and I can still remember it well...

I was doing avionics and one of our customers was having a problem with his radio that he wanted me to see in the air. This particular customer had a single radio in his Piper Tomahawk and it had left him in a lurch a time or two, so I jumped in carrying a spare radio to swap out in flight if his indeed failed so that we could easily return to our towered airport.

We went out of over some local foothills and loitered a while and sure enough his radio did exactly what he said it was doing. I had run it for several days on the bench while doing other jobs and it never failed for me on the ground so now he had made me a believer.

To swap out the radio in flight he had to put us in about a 30 degree left turn so that the radio would clear the passenger side yoke and slide out. So there we were in this turn over these mountains about 3,500' tall and the radio got stuck about half way out preventing him from leveling off and it wouldn't come out, or go back into the panel. I pulled, pushed, lifted and pulled, pushed down and pulled, side to side and pulled, and did combinations of all of this. The dumb thing was seriously stuck and we were in trouble. I found myself trying to figure out how to get my leg somehow up to stomp on the faceplate thereby jamming it back into the rack. There was no room to even bend over and try to see where it jammed up. After several 360's I finally got it unstuck and out of the panel.

That flight combined stupidity, and fear of circling until we ran out of gas. Bad feeling!
 
Posted about this here somewhere.

I was told I was number 2 behind a Cessna on final.
Another plane coming in was told he was number 3 behind the Tampico (me).
He said he had the "Cessna" in sight. He was looking at the same Cessna as me

I could hear what was going on and had a gut feeling. I realized what was happening before he or the tower and Climbed with everything that Lycoming 320 could put out.

Tower said "6PC traffic in your vicinity" I just babbled something like "I'm getting outta here"

He passed under me close enough that I considered giving up flying.
 
Spatial disorientation got me one time years ago, and that was a sickening feeling.

Luckily, I recognized it and I remembered my training and trusted the instruments, but it was like driving nails into your hands to make them do what the instruments said.

I was training for my IFR, but did not officially have it. I got caught in a layer by myself and all I could think was "you stupid stupid dumbass, you really ****ed your bravado ass this time." I never did it again. And still don't have my IFR and don't want it.... :no:
 
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Geico266 said:
Somewhere along the way I decided I needed to get my PPL. At that point in time I was only a licensed ultralight pilot. :mad2:
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Oh, 'fess up, you had to get the PP because the certain part of the anatomy turned to steel and brought you smack out of the ultralight realistic useful loads ;)

--

Can't think of any complete "hair-raisers", but did have learning experiences here and there along the way. Always make sure there's a way out.

To put some light into this gloom - not too long ago (couple of months or so), I was approaching Sequachee valley from NW, headed to Rome, GA. Headwinds took their toll on my GS and ETE and the future was looking darker by the minute - literally - the ETA was supposed to be about 30-40 mins before sunset, but was steadily turning into "eh, about sunset". To add to the story, there was a thin but consistent low overcast and the idea was (and still is) to stay legal, even if it meant capitalizing on class G below 1200 AGL weather minimums.

I'm an instrument rated pilot and normally all of my xc flights are IFR. Unless, like this case, the aircraft is VFR only. So there I was doing about 120 ktas into 20 or so kts headwinds, staying under a low layer and flying into the rising terrain with the sunset approaching. Classic.
To lighten up the day, there was an R44 couple of miles south of me headed in the same direction. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over when there's someone else doing an exact same stupid thing you're doing :D

Flying along like that my attention was properly divided between navigating (staying under stratus and out of the granitus), monitoring the systems (temps, fuel, the usual) and keeping an eye on what the other guy is doing. As we got to the western ridge of the valley, I had to start concentrating hard on making sure I stayed the prescribed 500 ft away from persons and property.. and the R44 just pulled a 180 and headed back to where it came from! Bummer. Over the valley saw the clouds smack on top of the trees on the Eastern ridge and the haze setting in, so made the executive decision to call it a day a few miles short of my planned overnight spot and just landed at the first valley airport I could - which happened to be KAPT - Marrion County. Whole lot of nothing there when the FBO is closed, thankfully some glider flyers were securing their trailers and gave me a ride to chow and then hotel - much obliged! Next day was spent sitting it out and starring at the sky, followed by now me driving a stranded VFR pilot (who did have a sweat breaking flight of the "that's it, I'm signing up for the instrument rating training today!" variety) to nearest hotel and then food.
Yet the next day the weather was clear all the way to Florida - and that was the day when NTSB would be working if that other stranded pilot (or me) didn't land at KAPT :)

PS It was actually quite pretty in the valley when I got there

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Two:

1.) Shortly after getting my PPL, I few to TYS to pick up another pilot buddy and then fly to Lynchburg, VA for lunch. Beautiful CAVU day, except neither of us noted the AIRMET for turb. We get near our destination and lenticulars everywhere. We got knocked about some, but got in ok and had lunch. After lunch, the winds had subsided some, and no lenticulars present, so we launched for home. Not the greatest idea. We spent the entire flight below maneuvering while the Skyhawk got slapped all over the sky. We had a period where the tail was getting knocked 40-45 degrees one way, then back 45 degrees the other, yeah, 90 degree swings. Lots of altitude excursions of 2000ft or so.

We weren't really scared per se, because we climbed to 10k coming back so we had plenty of altitude, but it was the most uncomfortable flight I've ever been on. Good character builder for a new pilot, though. I learned my lesson.

#2 later.
 
Sun was setting, I was 20 miles to my destination after 2 uneventful hours in a PA-28-140, 4000 feet over the mountains of NW PA.

The engine lost 90% of it's power, running rough. I couldn't hold altitude, so it was treated like an engine out emergency. Best glide..find place to land...etc etc.

Not a lot of great options. On this map, I began my emergency decent somewhere over the top left location "bucktail state natural park". I wanted to plant it in the field along the stream at the lupper left along route 120. But I was still too high and it was too close. My next plan was to put it in the stream along the road where I could be found easier.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Sinn...7985,0.03592&t=h&hq=Sinnemahoning+tavern&z=13

With lower height and more difficulty finding a suitable place to land in the terrain, as I was flying along the stream I came around a bend and found a better field. My eventual landing spot was at the field across the street and to the right of the point marked "A" on the map. It was barely made by clearing the last tree line and putting it in the field, which ran upslope perpendicular to the airplane.

The field was also very muddy, so the plane slid a bit. The right wing dug up some dirt and mud, the prop also dug into the ground. There was a wooden fence line ahead and houses beyond it, but the plane stopped relatively quick after planting itself down.

Cause of failure was determined to be "small object" like a screw injested itself into the carb and managed to make its way through two cylinders, as they were both all nicked up bad inside. The air box was recently worked on where a screw was noted to be missing. Airframe damage included a bent nosegear.
 
Other than being shot down, twice?
Agony Airlines flight, 1987. Coming back from Washington DC, to HPN over the Allegheny Mountains in a Short 330SD.
The turbulence was so bad that 30 minutes into the flight everyone, except me, and I'm including the flight crew, was heaving their guts out. The plane was awash in puke, and the smell was horrific. Twenty minutes later, while looking for a place to set down, the front passed, so we continued on in that disgusting mess. That was the closest I have ever been to being sick in a plane.
 
Shepherd said:
Other than being shot down, twice?
Agony Airlines flight, 1987. Coming back from Washington DC, to HPN over the Allegheny Mountains in a Short 330SD.
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You sure it wasn't the Pocono mountains? A routing of DC -> White Plains, NY wouldn't seem to go anywhere near the Alleghenies, which stretch through the Western side of VA North into South Central/Western PA.
 
Several weeks ago I was up getting a little practice in a 182 with a fella who wants me to be his glider tow pilot. We took of from Lindsay, OK and went over to Pauls Valley to get some gas then headed home for some touch and go's. It was a beautiful day with a south wind at about 5 kt and I was greasin' 'em. After a couple touch and go's, Jim wanted to buzz down and do a quick flyover of his farm, so we did just that, and it was about an 8-10 min round trip. When we returned to the airport, I did a normal approach to landing but just before touchdown at maybe 15-20 feet above the runway, a quartering right headwind blasted me so hard that it blew me off to the side of the runway. Naturally, I did a go around. Honestly, it was a little scary. So on the second try, I did the approach with the right wing tip dropped a little, so I wouldn't get flipped and everything felt good. I did final at about 80 mph and 70 over the fence as usual, but it felt fast. I flared, then floated, and floated, and floated, and just as I was about to go for another go around, it settled on the runway. I sucked the flaps up and got on the brakes, but I was eating up runway pretty fast. About 3/4 of the way down the 3000' runway, my 290 lb. a** was standing on the brakes and at that point I wasn't sure I could get her stopped in time. When the ordeal was over, I had a grand total of about 2 feet of runway left and I had to taxi off the end of the runway to turn around. We do have another 1000' of flat ground off the end of the runway, so I don't feel I was in great danger, but it was still a butt puckering experience. On the taxi back to the hangar, we both realized at almost the exact same time, that the wind sock was pointing the wrong direction. In a matter of minutes, the wind shifted from straight out of the south at 5 kt to a straight north wind at 18 gusting 25-30 and I failed to look at the wind sock on that last trip around the patch. I bet I floated 1500' and I was hauling a** at touchdown! I learned me a lesson or two that day.
 
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brywd said:
Mine was close to 30 years ago and I can still remember it well...

I was doing avionics and one of our customers was having a problem with his radio that he wanted me to see in the air. This particular customer had a single radio in his Piper Tomahawk and it had left him in a lurch a time or two, so I jumped in carrying a spare radio to swap out in flight if his indeed failed so that we could easily return to our towered airport.

We went out of over some local foothills and loitered a while and sure enough his radio did exactly what he said it was doing. I had run it for several days on the bench while doing other jobs and it never failed for me on the ground so now he had made me a believer.

To swap out the radio in flight he had to put us in about a 30 degree left turn so that the radio would clear the passenger side yoke and slide out. So there we were in this turn over these mountains about 3,500' tall and the radio got stuck about half way out preventing him from leveling off and it wouldn't come out, or go back into the panel. I pulled, pushed, kitted and pulled, pushed down and pulled, side to side and pulled, and did combinations of all of this. The dumb thing was seriously stuck and we were in trouble. I found myself trying to figure out how to get my leg somehow up to stomp on the faceplate thereby jamming it back into the rack. There was no room to even bend over and try to see where it jammed up. After several 360's I finally got it unstuck and out of the panel.

That flight combined stupidity, and fear of circling until we ran out of gas. Bad feeling!
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Besides being shot down twice (not me) that would scare the hell out of me!
 
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Setting up on downwind for runway 23 at KDTN when my tank that's indicating full fuel happens to actually be empty, the plane shudders as I'm at 1000ft pattern altitude and dies, I quickly turn the fuel selector to the next tank and it seriously takes about 5 full seconds to fire up. It was the most tense I've ever been while flying. All this happened on my wife's first ever flight. I didn't lose maybe 100ft altitude but it felt like forever.

The wife knew nothing of it until I explained it to her on the ground.


It didn't help when tower said "58W start your base turn immediately, your about to enter the military air space"
 
Jhernandez04 said:
Setting up on downwind for runway 23 at KDTN when my tank that's indicating full fuel happens to actually be empty, the plane shudders as I'm at 1000ft pattern altitude and dies, I quickly turn the fuel selector to the next tank and it seriously takes about 5 full seconds to fire up. It was the most tense I've ever been while flying. All this happened on my wife's first ever flight. I didn't lose maybe 100ft altitude but it felt like forever.

The wife knew nothing of it until I explained it to her on the ground.


It didn't help when tower said "58W start your base turn immediately, your about to enter the military air space"
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Good God!
get that gauge looked at.

Nice you were able to keep a clear head.
 
deltaindia said:
You sure it wasn't the Pocono mountains? A routing of DC -> White Plains, NY wouldn't seem to go anywhere near the Alleghenies, which stretch through the Western side of VA North into South Central/Western PA.
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For some reason we got diverted way to the west. Probably to avoid thunderstorms. The 330SD had no pressurization or oxygen, so all flights were below 9,000 ft.
 
That day over Macho Grande was horrible.
 
jordane93 said:
The worst flight I had was on Saturday. I was doing some night flying after a VERY long time. I think it[']s been around a year. I took my dad along to get current again
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How do you carry a passenger if you're not current? Is your dad a CFI?
 
acrophile said:
Cool. Must be handy to have a father who's a CFI!
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Yep! It saves a lot of money on flights when I fly with him. I still have a regular CFI at my flight school who I do most of my flying with. My dad is a pilot for Delta so he told me not to rely on him for most of the training.
 
Lakeland FL to Conroe TX after Sun N Fun 2010:

Had a 30-40 knot headwind flying in our Cessna 185 Amphib which did not have altitude hold. Average cruise was around 85 knots in a normally 120 knot plane and talk about turbulence. Took us a tad over 6 hours to get there and a little over 10 hours to get home. It was exhausting to say the least.
 
PDK to SAV, running under a cloud deck I could've probably gone over. Hot, humid, turbulent, huge headwind and dodging T-storms to boot. Had it been my first flight it'd been my last.
 
Hank S said:
Flying is like sex--the worst I've ever had was still pretty good.

'Nuff said.
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I wish I could say the same!

I had a flight, recently, where I was asked to drop someone off in Taos, New Mexico. The weather was dropping quickly and I was adamant to leave as soon as I dropped them off (they were picking up a plane.) asked me to wait for them to test fly the plane and it still had some issues so they decided to fly back with me. I refused because I did not feel comfortable flying in the weather, so I sat in the backseat as he decided to fly home - once airborne the ceiling was low and we could not find anywhere to break through. Ended up back at Taos - but it was the scariest 10 minute flight of my life and the other passenger in the plane (also a pilot) was crying from being so scared. I was never so happy as to land on the ground that day - and every time I think about that flight I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
 
On my solo cross country! The throttle linkage malfunctioned and couldn't reduce power to idle...had to land with engine off. Called my instructor and he asked me to fly home. I was 17, and obeyed. On approach to KPAO, they diverted me to the jet runway at San Jose International Airport. They closed the whole airport for me in my Cherokee 140! Once again, I shut off the engine and flared way too high (I had never landed before on a 1 mile wide runway).

12 fire trucks followed me to transient.

Should not have listened to my instructor!!!! Always wondered if he had some 'splaining to do to the Flight School and FAA.
 
Meliss said:
I wish I could say the same!

I had a flight, recently, where I was asked to drop someone off in Taos, New Mexico. The weather was dropping quickly and I was adamant to leave as soon as I dropped them off (they were picking up a plane.) asked me to wait for them to test fly the plane and it still had some issues so they decided to fly back with me. I refused because I did not feel comfortable flying in the weather, so I sat in the backseat as he decided to fly home - once airborne the ceiling was low and we could not find anywhere to break through. Ended up back at Taos - but it was the scariest 10 minute flight of my life and the other passenger in the plane (also a pilot) was crying from being so scared. I was never so happy as to land on the ground that day - and every time I think about that flight I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
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I've hesitated to post this but the words above illustrate the reasons for the words below. Part of what we do at POA is share knowledge so here it is. Please folks, take it in the spirit it's offered - just sharing knowledge.

Lots of reasons for the mountain flying "rules" for little planes. No IFR. Ceilings at least 2,000' above the highest terrain one will be flying over. Winds below 30 knots (okay, I'm flexible on this one - headwinds = bad, tailwinds = maybe tolerable depending on terrain and altitude). Visibility 30 miles (this one can have some room if pilot is very familiar with route).
 
Visibility 30 miles may work out West, but not in the Appalachians. I learned to fly in WV, along the Ohio River; sometimes we would have visibility 10 miles, often it was simply "Visibility greater than 6 miles."

Now that I'm in the humid South, I often hear "visibility greater than 10 miles" and can't help but smile.

Out west is different, I almost missed the airport because I was looking too far ahead based on where visibility dropped off. I was 8 miles out, and was probably looking >40 nm away.

Some consider western NC and east TN to be mountain flying, with peaks over 6000' and bases 2000' or less. Beautiful scenery, but not somewhere to mess around with VFR under a low ceiling. Haze can pop up over the next ridge, then you have neither ceiling nor visibility, and zero room for mistakes.
 
Yup, very different east of the Mississippi. Dunno why people even bother to live there. :D

I've never really flown there (one trip when I picked up the 'kota) so can't say much other than point out the highest elevations back east are our airport elevations out here. Sorta puts it in a bit of perspective. That said, I really don't want anything to do with the ice machines the folks in the east have to deal with.
 
Clark1961 said:
Yup, very different east of the Mississippi. Dunno why people even bother to live there. :D

I've never really flown there (one trip when I picked up the 'kota) so can't say much other than point out the highest elevations back east are our airport elevations out here. Sorta puts it in a bit of perspective. That said, I really don't want anything to do with the ice machines the folks in the east have to deal with.
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Just wait a few years. Global warming will melt those ice machines!
 
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