near disaster

I am a retired airline captain and a number of years ago I had a cargo flight out of Bogotá, Columbia. The airport is over 8,200 feet above sea level, so I knew my old four engine DC-8 would be struggling to get airborne even with the two mile long runway. The weather was in […]

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Every year my family and I fly from Cardiff, Wales to Dublin, Ireland with Aer Lingus. The flight is around one hour. The plane they use is an ATT 72-500 series aircraft. It’s a turboprop and it can carry around 80 people in a 2-2 configuration. The last time we flew with them we had […]

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Mr. Crazy

April 25, 2013

in Weird People Stories

I was flying back to Boston from a whirlwind week in Southeast Asia for a destination wedding in the Philippines– a four flight journey, including three consecutive nights on airplanes. On my way to the tropical island for the wedding, one of the plane’s two turboprop engines failed (over water) – leading to an emergency […]

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In May 1989, my son Josh and I were on our way to California to visit his godfather for his twelfth birthday. My son was crazy about all aircraft, knew all the types and specs, had never flown before, and wanted to be a pilot. His godfather was working as a government contractor as a […]

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Living in Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa, my family and I decided to take a small holiday to Kariba Lake in Zimbabwe. Having arrived early at the airport to maximize our margin, we saw that the flight was delayed by an hour. This was already hard to handle as it was midsummer with scorching heat; the terminal […]

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I was on a flight from Caracas, Venezuela to Barcelona, Venezuela. It was a “dark and stormy night,” as they say, so we were bouncing around with lightning flashes punctuating the cabin with white flashes. We hit something, maybe a wind shear, or something like it. The plane plummeted sharply. We lost cabin pressure and […]

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I’ve been a frequent business travel for many years and have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of reading the stories posted on sites like these. I never thought my experiences were worth posting – until this morning. I had the 6:00 AM flight from LGA to Dulles, VA. I knew bad weather was coming […]

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I often fly on both large airliners and smaller aircraft. I almost always prefer flying on noisy, drafty and sometimes rickety small airplanes instead of airliners because small aircraft travel means no hassles with luggage, security and those annoying other passengers. Naturally, I didn’t think too much of getting on to a Twin Otter to […]

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This past Sunday provided an up close and personal assessment of the airline industry, an industry that has seen considerable changes culminating with many major airlines going through bankruptcy. My wife Terri and I boarded Northwest Indianapolis bound flight leaving Bradley International Airport Hartford, Connecticut. It should be noted that Northwest Airlines is suffering through […]

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Rowdy Russian Flight

December 11, 2009

in Airplane Stories

Years ago on a flight from Chicago to Moscow, I flew the Russian airline in an attempt for not only cost savings, but to have the ill-thought thorough “authenticity” of my Russian experience. Over the next 12 hours I settled in at the back of the plane to try to get some sleep to try to dwindle down the […]

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The day I thought I was going to London was a day that I was very excited. I woke up like normal, brushed my teeth, showered and had a good breakfast, then I realized I needed to go to the airport to get to London! I checked my bags effortlessly and went through the deathly […]

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Living in the Rocky Mountains, travelers are faced with either commuting by air to the city airport or driving four hours to catch a connecting flight. To shorten the trip, many locals opt for the often scary, roller coaster rides, casually reading their newspapers while inwardly smiling at gasping tourists clutching their seats.  Several years […]

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