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✎ EN Your airplane horror stories

Discussion in 'Travel' started by massagelondon, May 20, 2005.

  1. massagelondon

    massagelondon Active Member

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    (People of a nervous flying disposition are advised to look away now )

    A few years ago (around June 99) I'd been in Dublin for a few days and my flight back to Newcastle with Aer Lingus was cancelled due to a plane going 'tech'. Needing to get back I hastily booked a £80 flight at the airport back to the near-ish Teesside Airport with Ryanair.

    The fun started at check in when my name failed to appear on the system. I was practically accused of pretending to buy a ticket and asked to move out of line. 10 briefcase slamming minutes later, a supervisor profusely apologised and booked me on the flight

    Got to the gate at 10am and a 1 hour delay was announced, the pilot had gone over hours after a delay on the incoming aircraft (from Leeds Bradford). Hustled onto the plane and we left at 11.15 ish

    The next 40 minutes were the worst turbulent moments I'd ever experienced in my long flying days. We were shook to hell, the pilot who sounded young and bloody nervous heaved us up and then dragged us down. The whole plane shook for the whole flight,

    As we descended for approach I thought we seemed low, we were. About a minute later we flew over the terminal at Teeside at alarming speed. The pilot said that cloud cover had been very poor and the runway visibility was low and that he was been guided in for a long approach.

    We went up again and turned very sharply, so much so that one of the stewardesses who was helping a passenger fell straight to the floor. The pilot came over the intercom

    'Er, eh, cabin urr, umm crew urr seats for urm urr landing' The guy next to me was totally white, the whole plane was white. Had this guy just nicked this plane.

    We came in very very fast, hit the ground pretty normally but then we went up and down and up and down again, then hit pretty hard.Sent me up out of the seat and then the usual brakes thrust back noise came on but seemed to make little difference, it sounded like we were still thrusting forward. We jostled along the runway for ages at some speed until we went over the edge of the runway and the wheels sunk into the wet marsh at the end, the plane violently stopped and the front wheel under the weight lurched forward leaving the plane at a 45o angle.

    Nothing happened for literally 5 minutes then the order came over the intercom 'evacuate evacuate evacuate'. No-one moved, we were all in total shock, this was the most fucked up landing ever. Then the cabin crew burst into action and forced everyone off

    Went down the rear chute, looked back onto the runway and couldnt see any braking marks, until we'd hit the grass. The plane was heavily tilted and 'dirty' on the white undercarriage. We were asked if we were okay and then offered taxis' home by the airport, the Ryanair staff said nothing, they looked embarassed. The pilot was carted away with some officials.

    I hung around and went for a pint in the bar and one of those radio geeks was there. He asked me if I'd been on the Ryanair 737, I said yeah and asked what happened, the guy said 'he came fast, he was shaking and there didnt seem to be any breaking, he was screaming over the atc radio and if it hadnt been for the conditions of the grass the bugger would have probably kept going until he went up again...tell ya one thing, your lucky we're a rural airport. He'd have hit the terminal at any other airport'

    Well thats mine. Lives with me to this day. Hasn't stopped me flying, apart from with Ryanair. It was bloody scary though."
     
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