Ok so who’s got a sketchy flight experience to share??
Last night, I flew back to Houston from Phoenix, and the flight was already delayed due to weather (Tropical Storm Hermine was making landfall to the south…. So yeah, flying into the outer bands of a tropical storm.. nice)….
Anyway, got away eventually and flight was pretty bumpy approaching Houston, then… coming in for the descent it started to get really lairy… A Huge line of Thunderstorms and big cells was approaching the Airport from the SE… for some reason, we were vectored around to the East side for final approach.. it wasn’t too bad, until we got around to make the final approach in the middle of a pretty big squall / storm cell… the plane was being tossed left to right, up and down … couldn’t see a thing, but I knew we weren’t too high, so I was a bit nervous about micro bursts (big downdrafts of wind from TStorms) - now just to note, im not a nervous flyer – one of my best friends is an Airbus pilot and between that and being an engineer, I have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on on modern jet’s… this being a little 737…. But, when everyone around is starting to freak out… it does get a little sketchy!
So I’d heard the unmistakable beeping from the cockpit of the Autopilot being switched off, which means they’re going to have to fly / fight this fucker in… and so at full flaps, gear down, speed lowish… we are being tossed about like a cork in a bathtub.. when all of a sudden we emerge and we are well high above the runway and off line, so you hear the engines spool up, flaps come back and we fuck off for a go-around (first time I’ve experienced this in a long time of flying!)… do a 180 and start heading back to the shit show weather (Lightning, rain, squalls…)… flaps back down then speed lowered, people really starting to freak out now… when we turn to the left, and properly gun it away to the north, flaps up… they’d basically closed the runway to the east and we now had to come in from the West before the storms hit the airport… now remember this is Houston’s international airport and there are planes everywhere, 4 runways active… loads of air traffic issues…. So we stay at literally 1-2000 ft and fly this big ass loop around… come in from the west and by now storms were literally about to close the airport. That approach was also super sketchy, but they managed to squeeze us down amidst lightning strikes and all sorts of shit – which im not afraid to admit, I was fairly relieved about….
Sparknotes: on a plane trying to land in the outer edges of tropical storm hermine... pretty sketchy shit.
So – what dodgy flights have you had? Ever had anything go wrong? Had to make emergency landings? Bad turbulence…. Basically have you ever shit yourself on a flight before (not talking food poisoning either..)?
