Hairy moments?

[Justapax1]

I've had lots of hairy moments on the ground, but in 64 years of being a pax (I first flew as a pax at 3) and untold millions of miles, I've only had an elevated heartbeat twice - one when the pilot of an Indian Airways flight out of HYD hit a downdraft on takeoff and the plane just.would.not.go.up. After a swift go-around at what seemed like 50 feet above SFC with the left wing moving over the desert so fast the ground was just a blur, the flight was cancelled for the day and he had another go the next day. The other was in a flight out of ZRH in *really* heavy rain when a couple of minutes in to the flight the pilot turned on the landing lights and it looked out of the window as if we were still running along a runway of rain. Heart in mouth, but no actual risk, the jets were just getting a bit of water injection.

All the times I landed at Kai Tak were completely uneventful. I think its reputation was worse that the reality, statistically it was quite a safe airport. Maybe pilots who actually had to land there might disagree.

Have other pax any hairy moments to recount?

[redsnail]

Departing Moscow Domodedovo one December on a Transaero B737. I pointed out the ice on the wings, cabin crew appeared nonplussed, assured me the pilots were happy. I thought we were going to remote de-ice. Nope, we took off... Fortunately, we weren't heavy and happily, nothing further happened. The week before, an Aeroflot aircraft had taken off with snow on the wings!
I never flew a Russian based airline in winter again.

[PAXboy]

Not really. I have been very lucky, other than October 1971: A Vickers Viscount from Salisbury, Rhodesia (as then was) to Johannesburg. The aircraft was not able to climb high enough to clear the thunderstorm and, as I recall, not able to go around the typical massive African cloud formations. It was the worst turbulence I have experienced. I was not frightened.

In December 2002, I was in a Jetstream 41 making the 1 hr hop from JNB to a small field near the Kruger Park (Phalaborwa). We held on the taxi way before t/o for a heavy highveld afternoon cloud burst to go through, then trundled to the other end as the wind had reversed. I knew it was going to be a bumpy climb out. It was and some people screamed, which is just about the only time I have ever heard screaming on a flight. Soon settled down.

[B2N2]

Tupolev 154M Albanian Airways night take off out of Nairobi ‘90-‘91.
Im pretty sure they started the take off roll on the taxiway then rejected and decided to try the proper runway.
Just this time you could hear the engines didn’t spool up to the same power setting as before and we rotated well into the amber lights at the end.
I was sitting last row and had my hands on the emergency exit handles till we climbed.
In cruise a FA with what looked like clown make up handed me a beer bottle with a crooked label that I couldn’t read.
One beer knocked me out till descent into Tirana where the aircraft was declared unfit to continue to Brussels which was my final destination.
I wonder why….

[JEM60]

Britannia Airways Brit 100. Taking off from Palermo to return to Luton after a motor race [The last but one Targa Florio]. 3 rejected take-offs in a row.!!! Worked alright on the fourth tho'. Never were told why!.

[Asturias56]

Iberia DC-9 out of Valencia mid 80's - he decided to give us a show of the City with some VERY tight and steep turns and you could feel the stall nibbling.

Also an SAS MD-82 at Kirkenes in N Norway when the port u/c brake locked on landing and we skidded semi- sideways down a very narrow runway with LARGE bits of granite right at the runway edge. AND we had to walk back to the terminal - no buses..................