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.
I can't say either of my close calls were the 'worst' since I'm still here to tell about it.
One, on my 2-nd solo. Practicing touch-and-goes at my home airport, adding 'student pilot' to my calls, lots of mixed piston & jet traffic (this was before 9/11). Everything is going great, I'm feeling pretty confident, turn base, then final, then... tower tells me to turn off on a taxiway after landing I've never heard of and never been on with my CFI (turns out it's a short connector taxiway between the 2 parallels, close to the approach end). It didn't occur to me to say 'unable', I acknowledged, and proceeded to feverishly search my airport diagram for this taxiway. I'm now on very short final, still don't know where the taxiway is, I decide I've got to land first and sort it out on the ground (Bad idea). My stress level is through the roof, heart pounding, you get the picture. Somehow I manage to land well, as I'm rolling out I see that damn taxiway go right past me. So I do a 180 and try to hook it in there. What I didn't know (or didn't hear while caught up in my mad search for the taxiway while on final) is that there was a Falcon jet behind me, from our local cargo airline. So I'm still on the runway, looking right at the jet approaching the same runway I'm on, the tower is screaming something in the background, and he looks like he's about to flare. I don't actually remember what I was thinking or doing, I think I was still trying to make it into that taxiway. I distinctly remember everything slowing down and my life flashing before my eyes. Then I hear the crew say "going around", and it seemed like an eternity before the plumes of smoke appeared and I saw it start to climb. I have no idea how close that was but the noise and rumble was unbelievable. I taxied to parking "on auto-pilot" shaking and in shock, and sat in the plane for the next 20 minutes trying to breathe again. I think I was still shaking the next day. My CFI was absolutely livid at ATC for having done that in the first place, and that was the last day I heard that particular controller on the radio. I feel bad about that, actually, I frequently think about that day. I blame myself also, why didn't I say 'unable' or go around when I had the chance? Comes back to the quote, "good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement". My biggest lesson learned: always think ahead and never be afraid to say 'unable'. It took me a good 6 months to get back into flying, and I was training twice a week leading up to it.
Two, happened last year. Climbing out of KELM in mild post-frontal turbulence in an Arrow, lost power. Not a great feeling when that happens. Thankfully elected to do a spiral climb over the airport because of the nearby hills, just to increase the safety margin. Came in useful, was able to bring it back to the airport.
