What's your worst flying experience?

BCoetzer said:

What's your worst flying experience?​

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Hitting a curb with my bicycle and being catapulted?
Doing a routine on gymnastics rings and accidentally letting go?
****ing around with waves and being washed of a cliff?
Receiving a back kick from a horse?
Driving a taxi in south africa?
 
for me was one el-al flight back to Israel, from JHB, was a 757 and it did a stopover in Kenya
must have been a crosswind or a burst tire or something else, but we had one really really hard landing where parts of the ceiling and overhead bins opened and hit people in the face,

didnt get off the plane, but there were some air hostesses that came around with ice packs while we got refueled
 
other one I love mentioning is one I still cant figure out what actually happened,

Kulula flight to DBN from JHB, boarded early, and got to my seat E/exit aisle,
next min I know stewardess comes to me asks me for my ID book, and then vanishes,

aisle fills up now with people walking in, no idea what happened, cant see her,
by the time boarding finishes they say there has been a security "anomaly" as they announced, delayed in JHB until they offload somebody with a forged boarding pass,

apparently somebody forged a boarding pass, got through security, bags on place check in everything.
and they only realized something was wrong when this afrikaans looking whitey with a strange name is already sitting in the same seat.

how, why, and what actually happened I still do not know.
 
That one time I took a flight to go on honeymoon, with my newlywed wife, who accused me of sucking off my best man at our wedding, on our wedding, the night before.

It was a rather kak flight.
 
Landing at night around 16 years ago on this airstrip in Madagascar on an A340 was an experience. We were delayed in JHB by around 3 hours so we only arrived at night. Unknown to us, our travel agent swapped our travel accommodation around so we weren't travelling far for the first three nights. Thinking we were going into a taxi to the accommodation we were a bit shocked to find we were dropped off at a beach with all our luggage at night. There was a small rubber duck who picked us up - and off we went into the dark water to a small island which was supposed to be our e.g 4th nights accommodation. With just a torch shining in-front of the rubber duck. Upon tying off the boat at a jetty the accommodation owner welcomed us "Howzit guys". Of course a hippie from Noordhoek runs this accommodation.....

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Most of my flights have been OK. Some turbulence and delays but nothing serious. Biggest issue I had was on the ground actually. We were in France in 2008 visiting my aunt an hour or two south of Paris. We had arrived via Eurostar from the UK and were returning via a Ryanair flight to the UK to continue on to the states. My aunt who spoke French has long gone and we we try board they check our passport and start throwing a hissy fit. There is no entry stamp into France.

When you arrive via the Eurostar train from London there is no queue to stamp passports. You have to go find the right counter and stamp in Paris. Not knowing this and being excited to be in Paris me and the wife just walked out the station.

They wanted to arrest us. Fortunately we had the Eurostar ticket stubs still in our "papers" folder and obviously the Shengen Visa with all the right dates etc and they eventually just packed us on the flight and sent us off. Was terrifying as they could hardly speak English and we knew no French. They kept saying you could be arrested over and over. Hard to explain something tricky like that at a rural French airport where almost no one understands you.

Daughter has Celiac disease so we always have to order the Gluten Free meal. Tend to all get it so we can eat together and it ranged from amazing (KLM) to horrific (Qatar). These days we always pack enough snacks in our carry on bags that we can get along mostly fine even if there is nothing edible.

Worse food stuff up I saw was a flight from London to New York. Was a big group of orthodox Jewish people on the flight, like 20 people, and somehow despite them confirming Kosher food multiple times there was none prepared for the flight. All they could do was try scavenge fruit from all the other meals and offer that to them. Absolute mess.

Also had fun flying SAA to the UK with a pregnant wife. Throwing up on a plane these days causes all kinds of issues. She used the little vomit bag and I then tried to ask the stewardesses what to do with it and for a replacement. Triggered a fair fuss as they tried to determine what terrible disease she had. Took some time to convince them it was just morning sickness. The bag of vomit was sealed in a big bio hazard suitcase that had literal chains wrapped around it.
 
First time I flew Cape Town to Joburg, hit an air pocket over the Karoo, plane drop about 50 metres, my heart was not in my throat, think it was in a$$

Cape Town to Joburg to Madrid. My case left on the tarmac in Cape Town, no clothes in Europe for a month, had buy clothes in Europe.

Joburg to Cape Town coming from Zambia. Old tannie sitting on my aisle seat, argue with flight attendant about my seat. She went to the bathroom about, I don’t know how many times. Start physically fighting with her husband the whole flight, he did not respond or fight back or even restraint her, he had patience to take so much abuse. Everybody could hear how she hit especially on his chest
 
I did enough trips between Ysterplaat and Wonderboom in a Flossie to make everything else seem like a walk in the park.

I suppose worst was my honeymoon trip to Bangkok. Wife broke the nails on her pointer, middle and ring fingers on her right hand right into the nailbeds trying to get the footrest out from under the seat. She also got airsick for the first time ever. The fact that she was 8 weeks pregnant probably didn't help.
Coming back, Joburg was fogged in and we diverted to Waterkloof where we sat for 3 hours waiting for the fog to clear. At least they showed us a movie (Fly Away Home (showing how long ago that was)) and opened the bar. I was well sozzled when we finally got to Joburg.
 
On a flight to Greece hoping I would sit next to a Greek Goddess babe.

Instead I got stuck between a screaming baby and someone who kept farting. Ear plugs worked well for the screaming baby, but were pretty useless as nose plugs.
 
My first time going to Thailand the kid in the seat next to me was allergic to the air con and vomited the entire flight.
 
At the age of 10, flying back to SA on SAA I found myself in a long early morning toilet queue somewhere over Namibia. I finally got into a cubicle only to discover, to my horror, a solitary olive pip of schit sitting neatly on top of the toilet seat. I wanted nothing to do with it and would have left it well alone but ended up cleaning it up because otherwise the next person in line may think I did it.

Always stuck with me. lol
 
1. Crying Baby. 3 hours of toddler rage.
2. Big burly lady with her head on my shoulder snoring for 2 hours.
3. Fender Stratocaster hardcover case completely demolished. Likely got wedged in the conveyor somewhere and fubar'ed. Guitar was fine just out of tune.
4. Plane dropping out of the sky for a few dozen meters over the Atlantic and being grateful for stress tested wings.
 
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