re: Scariest plane experience

Not me

But a Cessna 210 lost it's wings couple miles from here last week. Witnesses on the ground said the plane's wings came off mid-air in high winds before a shower of debris fell from the sky. That'd be pretty scary to even see.

ETA: LINK

It wasn't scary for me but when I was 17 we were flying from Tampa to DFW and had to circle DFW for a while because of thunderstorms in the area. I was sitting between my dad and my girlfriend at the time and because we had Hooters for lunch and Mexican food for dinner the night before, my stomach was a mess. I held the gas in as long as I could but eventually had to start letting it out. The lady in front of us kept turning around and spraying body spray in my direction in an effort to mask the smell. When we were deplaning she told me I was the nastiest person she had ever been around!

On a flight from Washington D.C. to Birmingham with turbulence so bad people were crying and praying. Landed safely but a smaller commuter jet coming in from NOLA right behind us crashed due to severe wind sheer in west Birmingham with one survivor.

Flying into mountain areas is never fun. Worst for me was a 737 into northern coastal Bristish Columbia, airport in a bowl between mountains. In clear weather its ok but not much clear weather near the coast from Nov – mar. Trying to land in heavy cloud and fog we were dropping like a rock into the airport and pilot never could get a good approach, we came in and then went to full power 4-5x before they figured to divert ..... then we went inland. Airline bussed us to destination in school buses .... Thx Air Canada
When we pulled up I didn’t know a 737 could climb like that ....

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Flying on a puddle jumper, an E145 a few years ago. As soon as we took off, maybe 100 or 200 feet up, the pilot dramatically dipped the right wing extremely fast. Scared the shite out of everyone for a few seconds, then he relieved and told us a flock of geese came out of no where and that he had to do it to avoid a mid air collision.

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LINK

About 20 years ago the wife and I were flying on Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Amman, Jordan in an Airbus (not sure of the model, but it was one of the larger ones). Over Turkey at 39,000 feet (had the flight information screen on). It was clear day - you could see to the ground.

The dinger starts ringing and the pilot says something in German in an obviously distressed voice. Flight attendants start scurrying and buckling themselves in. Announcement repeated in English that we were about to experience some severe air turbulence.

The plane started shaking and pitching. We were losing altitude - the engines were whining. The overhead bins didn't open - that Airbus was solidly made.

The wife grabs my arm and in a whisper asks if we were about to die. I told her I thought so.

It seemed forever, but in just a few minutes we were back in smooth air. Pilot said he'd been warned by a plane which had just encountered the CAT.

One other - about 1999 we had some negotiations in Minot, ND to sell some assets to a Canadian company (one of those assets was a right of way which later became part of the Keystone Pipeline system), but I digress. Four of us from Dallas and four from Tuscaloosa had to be in Minot. Commercial service to Minot is an adventure.

The president of our company let us use the corporate jet to get there and back. Coming back we got to Tuscaloosa after midnight to drop those guys off and the rest of us were flying on to Dallas.

We took off from T-town about 1:00 am. As the plane gained altitude you could hear funny noises. The co-pilot came back and told us the nose landing gear wouldn't retract, and that we were going to return to Tuscaloosa. He said they couldn't tell whether it was locked in place or not so we should be prepared for a hard landing.

As we approached Tuscaloosa we were instructed to put a pillow in our lap, bend over and grab our ankles (and I guess kiss our asses goodbye!).

The gear was locked - no problems landing, but it was an adventure getting out of Tuscaloosa at 1:30 am with all gates locked land nobody in sight.

wasn't scary but had some big turbulence landing at Love Field once, plane seemed to be bucking up and down 20-30 ft, pilot dropped it right on the runway. i was impressed.

While it wasn't scary to me, it seemed to get my two passengers nervous. First time in a plane ever I took off at Lakefront airport, small plane of course. The controls are touchy.

Flight deck, 1987.....broken arrow.....