Airplane Stories

Pan Am Is Gone, Thank Heaven

July 29, 2009 Airplane Stories

I flew Pan Am several times never had a good experience. Here is the worst: Lining up for takeoff from Honolulu, a great BOOM!! made the whole plane shudder. Never mind, we took off anyway, the airplane shuddering slightly until we lifted off. Sitting next to me was a Pan Am pilot. After we were [...]

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Sealed In A Sardine Can

June 13, 2009 Airplane Stories

My wife and I took a round trip flight from L.A. to Bangkok on Thai Air. The flight to Thailand was marvelous! The food was superb, the service was excellent, and the plane, along with all the amenities, was great. However, the return trip was quite the opposite. Our plane was taken out of service [...]

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Loss Of Fluid Nearly Leads To Loss Of Life

May 13, 2009 Airplane Stories

In the summer of 1977 I went to Norway with my parents to visit my father’s family. At the tender age of almost 7 I had already made this same trip 3 other times in my life, and I thought flying was fun. The trip to Norway was nothing to brag about, with TWA successfully [...]

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Soaked From A Leaking Restroom

May 13, 2009 Airplane Stories

In June 2000, I was flying back from Helsinki, Finland, to New York LaGuardia. It was quite a large plane that had two “sections” of coach class, separated by a pair of restrooms. I was seated in the first row behind those restrooms. Since it was a long 7-8 hour flight, I decided to make [...]

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Plane’s Wing Kisses The Concrete

May 13, 2009 Airplane Stories

I was flying from Memphis, through Pittsburgh, on my way to ABE to attend my uncle’s funeral. I was not in a particularly cheerful mood, especially since he was my only uncle and I loved him a lot. USAir had upgraded me to 1A and the flight was uneventful, although delayed out of Memphis because [...]

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Only In The Caribbean!

October 13, 2008 Airplane Stories

In the 1980′s I was on a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami. We had boarded, and as they pulled the enclosed walkway from the plane, they noticed that the aircraft had been damaged by the walkway used in New Jersey. Even though the plane had made the flight safely, they couldn’t let [...]

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Overloaded & Underserved

October 13, 2008 Airplane Stories

This isn’t my experience, but it was shared with me the other day by a couple I know. They are both disabled and cannot drive, and they were going to a banquet in a city four hours’ drive to the south of ours. They took another friend with them to assist them. They flew American, [...]

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Oxygen Masks Deployed

July 13, 2008 Airplane Stories

My husband and I had planned a quick 3 day trip over 4th of July weekend to Las Vegas. Our flight on Alaska Airlines from Seattle to Vegas was delayed over an hour due to mechanical issues. Finally they board the plane, close the doors and were almost ready to go when apparently there was [...]

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Return From Paradise

March 13, 2008 Airplane Stories

My husband, two kids (12 and 14) and I flew from Hartford to Honolulu to visit my family this March. I am a nervous flier, but I had been noticing that my daughter was picking up on it and somehow managed to convince myself, along with her, that it was okay to just ‘give up [...]

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No APU Becomes A Big SNAFU

December 12, 2007 Airplane Stories

On November 27, 2007, I was on Delta flight 1760 from Salt Lake to Orange County. The flight was boarding, and despite it being below freezing outside, the cabin temperature was in the high 80s. After sweating for several minutes following the scheduled departure, the captain came on and said the auxiliary power unit (or [...]

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