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Old 24 Oct 19, 11:11 AM  
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#1
lardyboy
Getting Excited
 
Join Date: Apr 11
Location: Cov
Craziest Airline Experience

Inspired by a comment on the Old Time Orlando thread: What is the craziest, weirdest, scariest, wildest, experience with an airline? In the air, on the ground, doesn't matter. With the number of miles flown over the years, there must be some stories to tell, so share your experiences.

One of mine would be an early 90's flight on Tarom, the national flag carrier of Romania. We had booked a very cheap skiing holiday to Brasov. The plane was a Tupolev. I had only ever heard of them before as military aircraft. The whole plane smelt of fuel, the whole flight. It was freezing cold, from start to finish. The in-flight meal consisted of a slice of ham, a slice of cheese, some beetroot and a bullet hard bread roll. All of this was topped off by procedure for leaving the aircraft, which required all of those in the first 30 or so rows remain seated until passengers from the rear of the aircraft had disembarked. This was because, the design of the aircraft meant it was very tail heavy and was to prevent the aircraft from toppling backwards, nose in the air.
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Old 24 Oct 19, 11:46 AM  
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Omega1
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Not scary or anything - on an internal flight in China from Yichang to Shanghai our cases were overweight - according to the rusty scales and we had to pay excess baggage (which was odd because every other flight had been ok). We went over to the excess baggage desk and after 40 mins of form filling and document stamping we had to pay the equivalent of 38p!
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Old 24 Oct 19, 11:52 AM  
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snowbelle
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Garuda Indonesia 1995 -London to Sydney Via Bali - I had'nt realised Garuda at the time just landed to pick up passengers everywhere !
Landed in Zurich, Bangkok and Bali no announcements just landed and opened the doors and more people got on...Food- I was veggie at the time 12 hrs after first take off I was given a piece of cheese and a yogurt!

Return journey we landed in Bangkok no one got on after an hour they told us the plane was 'broken' and were fixing it by the lights of a land rover , we all were disembarked and bussed to a hotel in Bangkok for two days( which we were not allowed to leave) before being flown home Thai Airways .

Halkidiki - Gatwick 1987- Girl got on with a broken leg in plaster, myself and Boyfriend of the time were asked if we could swap seats and she was sat by me she was crying the whole time as her friends had to go home and she was alone , I spent the whole of the flight consoling her.
Half way through the flight she started screaming "we are all going to die as " there was water coming through the ceiling and she would'nt shut up! it turned out someone had put a litre bottle of water in the overhead and it was leaking.

Malaysian Airlines - 1998 - Smoking allowed on board at the back of the aircraft- Boyfriend was a heavy smoker and spent nearly all the flight from LHR- KUL smoking the air was so thick with smoke you could hardly see your hand in front of you

Air Canada - 2015 Montreal- London -

Passenger got on carrying two glasses of whisky already three sheets to the wind sat behind me and DH, girl in front kept getting up all the time standing on her seat and opening and closing the overhead, man sat opposite her and his seat mate got progressively drunk and man started having a fight with the girl over her fidgeting she started shouting , then man and his seat mate starting having a verbal fight as they were drunk.

Drunk man behind me starts shouting 'who's got Xanax ,I need Xanax" this went on all night as the FAs hid in the back .

Man- MCO - 2014 Passenger in front passed gas the whole flight and it was so bad we had to stand in the galley for an hour to stop being sick -- FA offered to spray him with duty free We think he may have soiled himself as his jogging pants looked suspiciously full on disembarkation , him or his family did not get up once the whole flight.

JFK-LHR 2003- Father and Son get on completely drunk off their faces, father not too bad , son paralytic .. they sit in the row my friend is in, Son proceeds to vomit everywhere including over the passenger next to him.

My friend presses the call bell ..no one comes so she goes to the galley FAs refuse to come down as 'they don't like the smell of sick" give my friend some cat litter like stuff and her and vomited on passenger proceed to clean up.

Friend has to sit in crew jump seat half the flight , sharing with vomited on passenger.

Drunk son goes off to sleep and crew have to wake him in London whereas he started screaming " someone has been sick on me " I wrote to BA and they denied he was drunk and said he was just unwell , he could hardly walk and stunk of booze !

I have been on over 250 flights and there are more little adventures but they don't follow me ( I hope)
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Old 24 Oct 19, 12:08 PM  
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FlorayG
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I remember coming back from Spain once in really heavy winds and landing at Birmingham was hair-raising. We tried to land twice, were sideswiped at the last second and had to abort. There were loads of 'planes circling.
The pilot cheerily announced "Ladies and gentlemen, we'll have one more try and if we don't make it I'll go up to Manchester"

IF WE DON'T MAKE IT not the best choice of words I will never forget them

Anyway we made it and the pilot got a round of applause
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Old 24 Oct 19, 12:38 PM  
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Dixiechic
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Originally Posted by lardyboy View Post
Inspired by a comment on the Old Time Orlando thread: What is the craziest, weirdest, scariest, wildest, experience with an airline? In the air, on the ground, doesn't matter. With the number of miles flown over the years, there must be some stories to tell, so share your experiences.

One of mine would be an early 90's flight on Tarom, the national flag carrier of Romania. We had booked a very cheap skiing holiday to Brasov. The plane was a Tupolev. I had only ever heard of them before as military aircraft. The whole plane smelt of fuel, the whole flight. It was freezing cold, from start to finish. The in-flight meal consisted of a slice of ham, a slice of cheese, some beetroot and a bullet hard bread roll. All of this was topped off by procedure for leaving the aircraft, which required all of those in the first 30 or so rows remain seated until passengers from the rear of the aircraft had disembarked. This was because, the design of the aircraft meant it was very tail heavy and was to prevent the aircraft from toppling backwards, nose in the air.
My very first flight was on Tarom as a 14 year old on a school ski trip - I remember there being flowery wallpaper inside the plane but can't remember the food.
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Old 24 Oct 19, 12:44 PM  
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lardyboy
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Snowbelle - You really do seem to have some great flights. I shall have to keep an eye on here to see if I can make sure I'm not on the same flights as you :P
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Old 24 Oct 19, 12:50 PM  
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lardyboy
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Originally Posted by Omega1 View Post
We went over to the excess baggage desk and after 40 mins of form filling and document stamping we had to pay the equivalent of 38p!
Sounds suspiciously like someone was on the make. Had you not wanted to fill in the paperwork, it probably would have cost a few quid more

Had something similar flying out of Zanzibar, heading back to Nairobi. Was told in broken English mixed with Swahili, that there was a problem with my luggage. My wife was terrified and refused to leave the security area, so I went with a policeman, into a side room, where three women were sat behind a counter, expecting payment. It was the end of my holiday, so I was skint, so I scraped the spare change out of my pockets. "$20 dollars", said one of the women. "That's all I've got" I replied. They looked at the coppers and assorted tissues in disgust, before telling me I could go. Took my pennies with me as well
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Old 24 Oct 19, 12:59 PM  
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lardyboy
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Getting Excited
 
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Originally Posted by FlorayG View Post
I remember coming back from Spain once in really heavy winds and landing at Birmingham was hair-raising. We tried to land twice, were sideswiped at the last second and had to abort. There were loads of 'planes circling.
The pilot cheerily announced "Ladies and gentlemen, we'll have one more try and if we don't make it I'll go up to Manchester"

IF WE DON'T MAKE IT not the best choice of words I will never forget them

Anyway we made it and the pilot got a round of applause
Doesn't inspire confidence, "if we don't make it" :P

Flying Schipol to Cambridge on Scotair in 2001, the owner of the airline was the pilot and decided he would do the safety briefing himself as the flight was likely to be "a bit bumpy". Massive understatement. When we were landing, I looked out of my window, and found myself looking down the runway, the plane was angled so much to counteract the sidewind!
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Old 24 Oct 19, 12:59 PM  
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snowbelle
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Originally Posted by lardyboy View Post
Snowbelle - You really do seem to have some great flights. I shall have to keep an eye on here to see if I can make sure I'm not on the same flights as you :P
Bare in mind I have flown up to four times a year for 30 years so you will get some interesting characters

Also remember being weighed on a giant weighing scales to fly up to the Ranger Uranium Mine in the Northern Territory Australia - praying it would'nt tell me i was too fat !

I have nothing booked for the rest of the year
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Old 24 Oct 19, 01:08 PM  
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#10
lardyboy
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Getting Excited
 
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Originally Posted by Dixiechic View Post
My very first flight was on Tarom as a 14 year old on a school ski trip - I remember there being flowery wallpaper inside the plane but can't remember the food.
Don't remember wallpaper, but it was definitely an experience. Did they have heating in the terminal building when you got there? It was just after the revolution against the communists, so things were a bit of a mess hence the lack of heating and lights that looked like they were being run on batteries. The only people who looked warm were the soldiers wearing full cold weather gear inside
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