Have you ever been on an airplane in danger of a crash or other mishap?
by 
Stu B in white tie and tailCOAT
ANSWERS: 7
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On the way back from Paris, years ago, fire engines were waiting for us on the runway. We'd lost a lot of rubber from the tyres on take-off, so they thought there may be a problem with the landing. Must have been OK, though, since I'm still here.
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Two prior emergency landings--the last being a landing gear door blowing off and requiring the dumping of fuel over Hawaii and landing with lots of firetrucks lining the runaway.
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We landed on a very icy runway with a cross wind blowing. I could feel the tires sliding to the left until enough weight settled on them to hold them down. Kind of left an empty pit in my stomach. A friend and I took off from his drive way to his country house. It was raised about 2 to 3 feet above a plowed field. The wind took us to the left and the left wheel went off the driveway. He steered to the left and we went off the drive way but had enough speed and air cushion (it's called a ground effect) that we could speed up and fly before we went down. Whew, my closest shave in an airplane. He used the drive way for an airfield all the time. I later measured less than 24 inches wider than the spacing of the wheels of the airplane.
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In 1957, on a flight from Oakland Calif to Honolulu the plane lost two engines after the point of no return (recip. engines) about an hour out of Hawaii we almost lost the third engine. It belched fire, sputtered, rattled and banged but the flight engineer kept it going. They hand cranked the landing gear down and we landed without incident. The date was Friday, November 13th....A plane like the one I was in crashed killing all on board about a month earlier on the same flight. This was a MATS (Miliary Air Transport System) aircraft.
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Flew out to Santa Barbara one time. On the "puddle jumper" from San Francisco, nothing major happened until we landed, then I noticed a stream of liquid coming from one of the wings. When we got out on the tarmac (normal for the airport), I walked back to look, and a puddle was forming under the wing. I pointed this out the pilots. After we got our bags, I noticed the pilots outside, sitting on a bench. They SHOULD have returned to SF that night, but were grounded until the plane could be checked out. (Not BAD, but sure SEEMS like it COULD have been!) Flew to Toledo once with my boss, for a meeting. When we got to the airport, at our gate, we noticed a plane with the engine covering off of it. Turns out it was OUR plane and they were trying to fix it. Three hours later, sitting in the waiting room, and watching them out the window, they told us we'd be getting a new plane to fly us back. (GOOD! - Again, MAY have been a "close call".)
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Only watching movies of same, never in real life thank goodness...nor do I know anyone who has. We've had bumpy flights due to weather, but nothing remotely serious! :)
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I have been on a couple of flights that have made unscheduled landings. One that turned back due to extreme weather. Also change of airplane. I do not think on any occasion we were in severe danger of crashing
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