re: Most Turbulent Flight You've Experienced?

Lima to Cusco. Not a long flight but over a lot of mountains and with crazy turbulence. The pilot was talking over the intercom a lot, but in very rushed Spanish so I'm not sure what he said. People were praying. When we landed people stood up and clapped. Looking back I'm glad I was a couple whiskeys in - probably saved me from having a stroke.

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You may just be the thread winner.

Dallas to Albuquerque in early January. It was at night so you couldn't see shite and there were thunder storms all over TX. The plane was older and just bounced around for the first 30 minutes. Everyone on the plane was wide eyed and silent.

Flew from Hawaii to Sydney once and somewhere over the Pacific we hit a rough patch. At one point we dropped so fast that the bourbon and coke I was drinking went airborne, with the cup still in my hand and the liquid just hovering in space. If I had been sober I probably would have shite my pants.

Never had extreme turbulence, but did have a near mid air collision when approaching the ATL airport. The plane banked really hard to the right suddenly. A couple passengers that were looking out their windows said another plane was way to close for comfort.

Flew from San Antonio to Vegas. Was rerouted to Ontario, CA because of a dust storm in Vegas. There was a T-Storm in Ontario. On approach, we dropped for a solid 2-3 seconds. It felt like 2-3 minutes. My laptop was sitting on my lap, I just folded up the table and I was reaching for my briefcase when it happened and I caught my laptop floating in front of my face.

The girl next to me went berserk. She started screaming, telling me that we were going to die/crash. I wasn't sure at that point, I was pretty rattled myself. Landed just fine. Longest 5 minutes of my life. We fueled in Ontario, then we had the smoothest flight into Vegas that I had ever experienced. Arriving in Vegas from the east was much more turbulent in my experience.

Flying in from offshore on an ancient Bell Ranger B model from Eugene Island to Intracoastal City

Me and the pilot in the front, we see a huge frontal boundary rolling toward us over the coast. He tries to fly West but can't outrun it and the crosswinds were batting us around. He turns from west to WNW and tries to fly into the headwind, no dice. He then turns to the NE and tries to swing around it. He can't.

We then turn back into the wind and try to race to Intracoastal in a fierce headwind. We get down drafted repeatedly and continue to steadily lose altitude. We were being blown eastward and ended up over Vermilion Bay almost by Cypremort Point at under 500ft.

he was able to fight his way through the cross wind back across the marsh of southern Vermilion parish and we landed at Intracoastal in a fierce thunderstorm with lightning cracking all around us.

When we landed the pilot looked at me and only said HOLY shite.

I flew with a friend to myrtle beach in his 4 seat cessna last summer. Unlike this thread, it was the smoothest flight I've ever been on, private or commercial. He taught me alot about flying that day and explained to me how he never flies if the weather could even remotely ve bad.

Basicslly put into perspective how commercial flights go balls to wall even in rough weather because of their schedules. In reality, its really not worth it for the passengers tho.

Flew from IAH to Bakersfield. We were the last flight out and had to fly down to Brownsville trying to go around the storm complex. No dice so we just went through it. OMG! We got thrown around so bad that it felt like were in a dive several times. We finally came out of the complex near Phoenix. A few minutes later the co-pilot came on, (with a very heavy Arab accent, this was 2003) and said we almost had to land in Phoenix for fuel but they "thought" we could make it on into Bakersfield. Holy crap, we all voted Phoenix. Anyway, we made it. Called my wife and cancelled my next two flights home. Scared the crap out of me.

Other time was flying from Bakersfield to LAX in a prop plane we went through the wake turbulence of a 747. Felt like we hit a wall, everyone on board screamed, I grabbed the seat in front of me which was now filled with the girl's hair sitting there. She gave me a dirty look when we landed. Oops.

For what it's worth, I am retired Air Force and a former air traffic controller. It is nearly impossible for turbulence to bring down a plane. You'd have to be in a terrible thunderstorm. Doesn't make the experience any more enjoyable though.

Baton Rouge to Houston on a Continental prop plane. A tornado touched down near IAH while we circled and waited for the storm to clear out. If it weren't for the seat belts there would have been some serious injuries from people flying around the cabin. Went on for close to an hour. They should never have put us in a holding pattern where they did. It was the first flight for one older woman, she kept asking if it was normal.