Flight delays and other such problems.

[Miss Chicken]

Yesterday my sister left Adelaide to fly to Hobart. The first leg of her flight took her to Melbourne and at Melbourne she boarded a flight to Hobart. The plane actually ended up circling Hobart at around 9.30am but because of heavy rain and strong winds was unable to land and the plane had to return to Melbourne. She then had to hang around Tullamarine airport to 1.30pm when she, and all the other passengers on the first flight, boarded a plane to try once again. The plane arrived at 2.30pm. It was still windy but not as strong. My sister said the landing was the most frightening she has ever had (she is a nervous flyer to begin with). She said all the passengers cheered and clap when they were finally safely on the ground.

Now most of us know the story of Squiggy and the hole that appeared above his head but I was wondering if anyone else has had long delays, cancelled flights, frightening landings or takeoff or, like Squiggy, something far more dangerous.

I have only flown a few times and all the flights have been unremarkable. No delays, no problems at all.

 

[Holdfast]

The worst flight delay I had was about 24 hours, when the then brand new Swannick Air Traffic Control Centre crashed (this was about 10 years ago). Swannick, for those unaware, runs air traffic control operations for the UK, including some of the busiest airports in the world like Heathrow, as well as some of the world's busiest airspace. When Swannick crashes, serious delays happen.

I was in Japan at the time, intending to fly back to LHR. British Airways were good about it, putting everyone up in a hotel and/or offering upgrades. But it was a bit of a nuisance.

 

[sojourner]

I boarded a flight from Orlando, FL to Newark, NJ., a route I have taken many times and usually took about 2.5 hours. Not this time. Before we even took off - flight delayed due to weather at destination - twice. Stuck in the plane for 3 hours before finally taking off. Get to the Newark area and the weather has closed the airport again. We circle for 2 more hours and have to divert to Philadelphia to refuel. 2 hours there, stuck on the plane. Plane finally takes off again and we make it to Newark arriving as the last flight of the night. The entire flight's luggage takes another hour and a half to make it to the baggage claim. I shit you not. Over 11 hours from initial boarding till I get my luggage. For a flight from Florida to New Jersey.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I got stuck in the Milwaukee airport for ten hours once.

This is because there was a storm in Newark (where I was headed - my flight stopped in Milwaukee, because I was flying Midwest) and they would not let us leave Milwaukee for that long.

 

[eastman23]

I've been delayed a few times and had a flight cancelled once.

First time was on Air Canada that was late leaving every airport on both ways of the trip. But I give them a bit of a pass on that since it was October 2001.

Second delay was coming back from Montana on Northwest (this was just before their merger with Delta), and someone forgot to plug in the plane or something overnight, so it was basically a block of ice the next morning. So we had to wait for them to defrost it a bit and even then it was still cold...

Returning from another trip to Montana, there was about a 30 minute delay in Denver because everything was backed up due to fog or something. In the end, that was okay since it was the return trip and we didn't end up that late coming into Winnipeg.

But the worst experience I've had with delays/cancellations was yet another trip to Montana, this time on the way there. We left Denver knowing that it may be foggy at our destination and we ended up turning around and heading back. I figure we were about 30-40 minutes from landing at the time. So we ended up back in Denver around 10pm or so. But, props to United, they had customer service reps on hand and within an hour, I had a ticket on a Delta flight to my destination through Salt Lake City the next morning. It was a bit of an adventure, but I survived.

 

[MacLeod]

Longest delay I've had was 5hrs (which was actually on my first flight), the problem with the plan was serious enough they had to fly down the spare plane from Manchester, to Gatwick. I was heading to Orlando.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

Given that I'll pass the 3 million mile mark for commercial air travel this year, there have been many delays, missed connections and cancellations. None of them, though, have ever amounted to much or generated any fear. Spent a couple of nights in airports when traveling alone and many nights in hotels courtesy of Continental airlines. Now that I'm back in the serious business travel game, I expect there will be more interesting times but I'm looking forward to every mile.

 

[sojourner]

^I miss traveling on the company's dime.

 

[MLJames]

Coming home from college for the first time in '79, I was flying from El Paso, Texas to San Francisco, with a stop in Denver. I was flying on Continental, and in those days you were going to have a stop there no matter what your itinerary was (I used to joke that back then Continental would route you through Denver on a flight from Dallas to Fort Worth). Anyway, for three or four days before my flight the temperature in Denver had been in the upper 50s, but while I was inbound the temperature dropped to the low 30s pretty quickly. The result was pea-soup fog. My plane was the last one that managed to land; the ticket agent at the counter told us the next plane in the pattern couldn't even find the airport. There had been major delays for hours, so by the time my plane landed the eateries in the terminal had been pretty well cleared out.

About five hours later the fog started to thin a little, and word spread that they were going to be able to start flights again in about two hours. However, they first told us that they were going to start with people on the San Francisco flight originally scheduled to leave two hours after mine. Needless to say the counter agents now had a lot of hungry, angry people to deal with, and eventually the agents got the correct info: we were going to go in the original order. Very quickly they started boarding the plane, and this happened so fast that I didn't have time to call home to tell my parents I was leaving. When we landed in SF there was no one to meet me, and we lived more than an hour's drive from the airport. It finally worked out to be 18 hours from the time I took off in Texas to when we pulled into the driveway at home.

 

[Finn]

I once had a 4 hour delay.

And there was the flight where the plane didn't land smoothly. It didn't make the news or anything, but the plane jerked around a bit when it first touched down.

 

[Lindley]

The result was pea-soup fog. My plane was the last one that managed to land; the ticket agent at the counter told us the next plane in the pattern couldn't even find the airport.

Instrument flight 101, just in case anyone is curious: airplanes, particularly commercial airliners, use navigation systems based either on ground radio transmitters or GPS. They may also have a controller vectoring them with radar. They always know where the airport is, at least in terms of direction and almost always in terms of distance. Getting to the airport, or from A to B in general, without visibility is not a problem.

However, every IAP (Instrument Approach Procedure) has a Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA) or Decision Height (DH) depending on the procedure type. This is the altitude below which the pilot is not allowed to continue descending unless the runway environment is spotted visually. If the plane reaches this altitude and is still in the clouds or the runway is otherwise invisible, the pilot is required by law and safety to execute a published missed approach procedure, which basically involves getting some altitude under the airplane fast while pointing it in a direction known to be clear of obstructions. At that point the pilot may either choose to try again, hold for a bit until conditions improve, or divert to a different airport.

The height of these MDAs or DHs vary by approach type. An ILS may typically take you down to only 200 feet over the runway; a category 2 or 3 ILS, which are rare and require special training, takes you down almost completely to the ground. Other approach types may only take you down to 1000 feet or even higher above the runway.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Extremely well stated. With over 100 hours actual instrument time in my log book, I can testify to the truth Lindley speaks. Breaking out of the muck on final is a great reason to celebrate. I did most of my IFR in our Grumman Cheetah with no glide slope and only single nav/comm. My personal "minimums" were always a couple hundred feet higher than published, just for the safety factor.

 

[Lindley]

Well that's impressive. I hope you invested in a handheld navcomm for backup, I wouldn't want to be in the soup with just one. It was bad enough the time I lost radios on a VFR night flight.

 

[Pingfah]

I got stuck in Calgary once, that was awesome, we got a free 4 star hotel and I got to miss 2 days of work.

Apart from that I have always been very lucky. I was due to fly to the US when BA called their Chritmas strike a few years ago, but then they called it off at the last minute, then on the way back I got upgraded to club class because loads of people had cancelled their flights to get the refund believing that they weren't going to fly.

 

[MacLeod]

Been on a plane four times, had delays on 2 of them.

 

[Mary Ann]

The longest delay I've encountered yet is a 6-hour one flying from Amsterdam to Montreal in about 1976. My mom was travelling with 3 of us kids, and I remember her buying us a lot of stuff to keep us occupied. I believe KLM had to bring in another 747 to flying us to Mirabel, AKA the airport in the middle of bloody nowhere.

When I was flying Canadian Airlines (remember them?) from Thunder Bay to Toronto in '91 we left TB on time, but upon the approach to Toronto we circled so far south over Lake Ontario that I wondered if we were rerouted to Buffalo for some reason. We weren't, so Pearson Int'l must have just been very busy, but it took 20 minutes after turning back over the lake to reach Pearson, and TB to Toronto is just a 1 1/2 hour flight to begin with.

 

[Sean Aaron]

The only flight I was ever really afraid on was a short trip to Dublin in January 2002 under high crosswinds. As we were landing the plane was getting blown sideways and I noticed we were coming in really hot which caused some concern. The fear in the cabin was palpable and folk were visibly relieved when the plane stopped bouncing (worst landing ever). This was my first and only Ryan Air flight.

After this experience I encountered a technical trainer from Canada who was an avid amateur pilot and during a break in the class I asked him what it was like in the cabin under turbulent conditions like that, i.e., was the pilot fighting for control of the plane, etc. His answer was that he'd never flown a jumbo jet himself, but being heavier they were a lot easier to handle under severe turbulence than the small prop-driven planes he flew. Since then I'm a lot more mellow, even when the plane feels like it's in the hands of a giant shaking it.

Clear air turbulence sounds like the worst thing ever, and I hope to never experience that.

The only delay I had that was truly mind-numbing was a Glasgow to London Heathrow flight for a training course where we orbited the airport for longer than the duration of the actual flight; the worst point being when we started to land and had to abort because a plane on the ground crossed the runway forcing us to stay in the air another 30-45min. Once landed we had to be trucked out to the arse end of nowhere and then our luggage was dumped in the middle the room whilst staff read out our names and handed bags over a barrier. This was Easyjet - another budget airline I now avoid. I try to stay away from Heathrow if possible as well.

Worst airport to debark in internationally was Newark. I cannot believe the cheek/utter stupidity of having coin-operated luggage trolleys prior to hitting U.S. Customs when it's very unlikely any travelers entering the United States who didn't originate there will have any American currency which isn't a note. By pure chance my one time through that airport a colleague had given me a Sacagawea coin before the trip and I was very thankful to have brought it with me.

 

[An Officer]

The most I've seen is a 4 hour delay with BA, something to do with the plane not being ready for take-off on the other side. They provided a buffet and lounge, so it wasn't too awful.

I experienced a near miss in 1997 before they changed the times between planes from 2 minutes to 4 minutes (I think). We were descending toward a runway, which also had a plane taking off at the time. Only felt a sudden push back into my seat as the pilot raised the nose again. It was quite an adventure! Thankfully, none of us were nervous flyers.

I've experienced quite jarring turbulence and stuff like that, but it just sends me right to sleep. I figure, I'm safer than crossing the road back home, and there are more experienced hands than myself at the helm! And if a must go, and I will, can't think of a cooler way.

 

[Mary Ann]

I've experienced stomach-dropping turbulence a number of times. I'm not a nervous flyer but one flight from Toronto to Heathrow about 18 years ago had me frightened (it was a British Airways flight), as we hit some serious turbulence pockets. What's worse, some idiot got up from his seat despite the fasten seatbelt signs being on and the 747 shaking so hard it was rattling, to get something out of a bag in an overhead compartment a few seats away from his own. One of the flight attendants was literally yelling at him to sit back down immediately, but he refused 'til he got what he wanted. It's amazing nothing fell out of that compartment and caused injuries to the passengers sitting underneath it, and that the idiot wasn't injured, either.

 

[An Officer]

^ They should be given the power to use tranquilliser darts, like they do in the wild. *Thud* Goodnight.