34 Pilots Share The Most Terrifying Close Calls They’ve Had Mid-Flight

Statistically, flying is the safest way to travel. But when you’re sitting in a machine moving 500–600 mph and climbing 40,000 feet into the sky, it doesn’t always feel that way. And when something does go wrong up there, even small issues can turn into genuinely terrifying moments.

On Reddit, pilots and crew have shared some of the scariest experiences they’ve ever had in the air—situations they survived while passengers had no idea anything was wrong. Here are the stories that stayed with them long after landing.

#1

I once woke up 40 minutes before landing to my co-pilot sleeping.

#2

Once, departing Burning Man in a private plane with a couple of passengers, my engine conked out. I didn’t even follow the engine-out checklist. I glanced at the fuel pressure gauge, didn’t like what I saw, hit the switch for the auxiliary fuel pump, and it came back to life. The whole incident was over so fast the passengers never even noticed.

I wouldn’t call it a “we’re all doomed” moment, though. Worst-case scenario, I would have had to set it back down on the playa, which is pretty flat terrain as far as the eye can see.

#3

This was about seven years ago now. I took my brother and two cousins up for a short sightseeing flight one morning in a Cessna 172. I knew there was some weather coming in so I wanted to get it over with quickly. About twenty minutes in I notice the clouds getting worse and then some lightning off in the distance, definitely time to head back. Heading back I radioed my intentions, uncontrolled airport but with an FBO, and someone radioed back with the current winds. It didn’t compute what they said, and in retrospect I should’ve asked for clarification. Get back to the airport and as I’m on final I realize just how bad the wind is. Having a hard time keeping on centerline and eventually go around on the first try. By now I’m starting to sweating bullets and planning on rerouting if the next attempt doesn’t go well. I make sure to turn the intercom off so my cousins in the back can’t hear how panicked I’m becoming, though I did keep my cool through the whole thing. On second attempt I’ve got the rudder pegged to the left and manage to get the wheels on the ground safely. I taxi to park, shutdown, jump out, and start shaking with adrenaline and let out a huge sigh of relief. Cousins had no idea what just happened, it was just an exciting flight to them. My brother kind of knew what was going on, and I let him in on what I was thinking later. Apparently I had an audience of guys from the FBO watching me as well, probably yelling at me too go somewhere else. I’m honestly surprised sometimes I managed that landing with no incidence, especially since that was basically my first crosswind landing.

#4

I was in the process of getting my PPL (private pilot licence) and I was flying circuits solo. Before I took off, the CFO of the flight school asked me if “I was sure it was a good idea to fly, it’s pretty windy”. I was flying a cessna 152 on a day with wind pushing 15 kts and turbulence around 20. I honestly don’t know what I or anyone at the flightschool was thinking letting me (16 years old) take off.

Anyways, a few bumpy circuits go by with no problem. I actually got some great practice landing in turbulence. So the last circuit of the day, I’m on final with full flaps doing the ABSOLUTE minimum speed for approach in a 152, not taking into consideration that the air is super turbulent. For those who don’t know, when it’s bumpy you should be going a little faster on approach than usual. Anyways I’m quite close to the ground, maybe 300-400 feet and I can HEAR the wind blowing over the sound of the engine.

Suddenly, no wind.

I had just lost 15-20kts of almost direct headwind on final approach with absolutely no airspeed to spare.

I remember my shirt sleeves looked like they were inflating and the plane’s stall warning started screaming at me. The controls became totally useless, like a limp computer joystick. Thankfully I had my hand on the throttle like my instructor taught me and for whatever instinctual reason (good instructor probably), I gently pushed the throttle all the way and slightly lowered the nose.

All of this took place in the span of about 5 seconds. I remember what I did, but not thinking about doing it. It was like when you drive somewhere and you suddenly realize you’ve arrived without remembering driving.

Very scary.

Anyways I landed the plane just fine and went home and took a nap. My parents said I was pale as a ghost when I got home.

Flying is fun until it isn’t.

EDIT
A lot of people are wondering why I “gently” pushed the throttle in. The reason is because the carburetor can’t provide enough fuel to maintain the proper fuel/air mixture. When the pilot rapidly pushes the throttle in, the carb is supposed to provide a quick “squirt” of fuel to account for the rapid increase in air. If the pilot *slams the throttle to the firewall*, the huge amount of air coming into the carb is simply too much for it to maintain the proper air/fuel mixture, even with the extra “squirt”. In the best case this can cause the engine to “lag” for a few seconds while the mixture catches up, and in the worst case might actually cause the engine to stall completely.

So imagine an inexperienced pilot who panics and really jams the throttle all the way. That may have a disastrous effect because not only are they at low altitude with little airspeed, but they just choked their engine and simply can’t get more power.

#5

Mine is from many many years ago when I was a student pilot. I was 14 I think at the time. I had about 15ish hours done and getting close to soloing for the first time but still had a few hours and more landings to practice. I was doing some basics and getting ready to come back with my instructor to practice some touch and go’s for a bit. Coming back through we had to pass through DTW’s bravo airspace (means need permission to go through it). A few min before I was about to call for permission, my instructor got really quiet. I looked over at him and he looked really bad. I thought he was going to puke so looking for a bag. But then I notice he isn’t breathing. I figure out where I am at and call up DTW approach. Declare a medical emergency and that my instructor was not breathing. I also told them I am a student and never landed on my own before, and never in a large airport. Detroit approach was amazing at helping me. They gave me an option for DTW or Willow but Willow would have added a good 5-10 min since i was coming in from the SE. Opted for DTW and they were great at giving me vectors while also getting the big jets out of the way. I remember hearing them tell several planes to go around and several more into a hold. Anyway, did my approach and made the most butter smooth landing I have ever made in my life (even till this day). Ambulance was right there on the taxi waiting for me. Turns out my instructor who was only 25 had a heart attack. He ended up being ok. All in all from first call to him in the ambulance was less than 10 min thanks to ATC and DTW tower.

#6

(Not quite with passengers but TIFU nonetheless)
During my first solo flight ever, I was really excited and wanted to video record the special occasion. So there I was, taxiing down the taxiway with one hand holding the my phone. One thing about old propeller planes is that they’re just like old cars, and don’t always drive straight. I suppose I was a little too concentrated on making sure my camera was properly angled and focused…next thing I knew my plane ended up rolling off the asphalt…into the grassy ditch

I PANICKED…how tf am I supposed to get this plane out of here

Over the radio, there was a silence, as the controller likely saw what happened from the tower. After a few seconds, probably still speechless at this point, she casually checked on me to make sure I was doing okay

To save my embarrassment, I tried to power up and drive out of the grass back to the asphalt. Much to my surprise, it worked. I did my short flying as planned and returned to the hanger where my instructor was waiting. I have no idea how many people saw what happened, but from the look on his face, I’m pretty sure he knew too. And yes, that video of me driving a plane into a ditch still exists somewhere

…I suppose this is the airplane equivalent of “don’t text and drive”.

#7

Long time ago, back in 1989 I was a First Officer on the 747-100. We pushed back from the terminal in Anchorage and taxied out for a departure to Narita, Tokyo. We were full of people and very close to max take off weight. At the end of the runway (it was my takeoff) I stood on the brakes, stood the thrust levers up and the engineer set full take off power. Released the brakes and off we trundled. And we rolled, and rolled and rolled down the runway. It was not sparkling acceleration by any means. As the end of the runway loomed into sight and take off speed still some distance away… with the lights going… red white red white red red red… the Captain said, and I quote, “best you rotate!” We were a good 20kts below Vr. Not being a total numpty, I slowly and smoothly rotated and the beast flew away off the end of the runway like a lady. We slowly climbed away, cleaned up, turned and headed out West. Not a word was said for a long while. Finally through 20000 feet the engineer launched himself at the (my) performance figures. Nothing was wrong, and we were at full power anyway. It turned out that extra cargo had been loaded in error, and we were well overweight. Apart from me wetting the seat and a raised heart rate, the passengers were none the wiser.

#8

Not a pilot but a flight attendant. We landed, everything went smoothly, as we’re deplaning the pilot steps out of the flight deck and goes “wow, I’m glad we made it, we lost 2 hydraulics on the way down”.

#9

In 1994, while lining up for final approach to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on a sunny and humid 100° F day, our Boeing 747 hit a large downburst and suddenly dropped 1000 feet in altitude without warning. All of the passengers were seatbelted in and were completing their US Customs declaration cards. The flight attendants were walking the aisles making sure that the passengers and aircraft were ready for landing. The sudden drop caused the flight attendants to hit the ceiling. Fortunately, none of them were injured, but the aircraft definitely experienced negative g-forces for a few seconds.

#10

I wasn’t the pilot in the story, I was the clueless passenger.

My cousin was a pilot — small craft like cropdusters, and helicopters. He was probably a pretty competent pilot; spent a lot of time flying bad forest fires, running power lines, flying geologists on erupting volcanoes, removing shot-up soldiers from across enemy lines while being shot at, etc…

One time he took me up in his cropduster. It was a little single seater — I was sitting on the empty chemical tub behind his seat.

We were flying over a little town, not sure how high, but not very high, perhaps a couple thousand feet.

I was leaning way over trying to get a look out the window, when he started to look way left and way right, like he was trying to see the tail end of the plane. He was methodically checking various controls, and also appeared to be methodically messing with the little mechanical trim controls.

Finally, he looked back along the inside of the cabin, just under the window, and when he got to where I was leaning out the window, he asked me to move away from the window a bit.

After we landed, he pointed out the little rudder (if I recall correctly) control wire that I’d been leaning on pretty hard. He said that he’d been fairly sure that there was a control failure of some kind, and that he thought we’d possibly be landing fairly hard in a not optimal place to land.

Dude was unshakable.

#11

Before I start, I am French, so i may some mistakes.

So I was Co-pilot in a Boeing 737-800. We were on short final, at Gatwick Intl. (England). Flaps 30°, spoilers (or airbrakes) armed, autobrakes set. Everything was fine until this happended.

Me and my captain hear the GPWS (a voice in the cockpit to help pilots) saying:
-TOO LOW, FLAPS.

We two were scared from the voice. The captain put a hard pressure on the yoke (that thing used to control the plane) which gives me the priority to fly the plane. BUT when the priority changed, I was putting flaps lower. The nose got down. When I notice the plane going down, I immediatly grab the yoke and pull the nose up. But the plane was at 400 feets above the ground. Then my captain says: (CAP= captain ME= me lol)

CAP: We might not make it, we’re gonna stall!
ME: WHAT? ENGAGE THE TO/GA (auto take-off/go-around), QUICK!
CAP: OK!

He presses the button, and the trust lever goes up.
I say to the captain that we may countinue our approach, as we’re on the right altitude again. He agrees and we land with no problem. The Passengers and the F/As didn’t notice anything, and we landed smoothly. Clearly buttery.

#12

Private pilot here.

Cessna 172

Doing a touch and go but landed with the wind at my back instead of my nose. When I added throttle and pitched up the wind gusted and disturbed my lift, I didn’t ascend hardly at all. Put on some flaps and managed to get above the fence I almost hit.

#13

I’m on this flight for Copenaghen, captain announces the start of landing procedure. You can feel the plane descending… Until suddenly, it goes abruptly back up and starts turning left… We (passengers) were clueless of what was going on..

And then, confession on the speakers from the pilot: “As you may have noticed, we are going back up… Well, we almost crashed into another airplane. Waiting for second confirmation from control tower for landing.. Ehehe”.

#14

Helicopter pilot here. I was flying a relatively short tour with 3 passengers in an R44 over some vineyards near the airport I was flying out of, passengers were all pretty cool and relaxed through the flight so naturally I was as well. Person up front with me was very interested in what I was doing and how everything worked. He had a million questions and I was happy to answer them all. Anyways, tour is almost over and I’m on about 1/2 mile final when the clutch light turns on, for those not familiar the clutch light on Robinson helicopters is pretty normal and comes on whenever the clutch is adjusting. Especially in colder climates it is completely normal to come on for a few seconds and go away, no big deal. However, if it stays on for more than 10 seconds we’re potentially in big trouble.

So the clutch light comes on while I’m mid-sentence and I subconsciously start counting. Somewhere around 7 I stopped talking, flipped the pilot iso, practically in denial that this is about to happen. I get to 10, pull the clutch circuit breaker. At the same time I felt just the slightest tail shudder so I pushed for some extra airspeed and mentally prepare to do an auto (power off landing). Luckily we made it to the ground fine and I never lost power. After I set it down the person up front looked at me and says “what was that all about??” So I just said “I thought you guys would enjoy a little excitement at the end” they thought it was awesome so I sent them on their merry way none the wiser. After they walked away I opened it up to see only 1 of the 4 clutch belts still in place. Scariest day that those folks will never know they had haha.

#15

Uncoordinated turn and all the fuel went to one side of the plane. Choked both engines… sputtered and cut out. 3000ft high, so brought back the coordination and pointed down a bit. The started back up. Yikes.

Edit: Well this got some attention. Some clarifying points: #1, not an airline pilot. I’m an aerial photo pilot. (Had one passenger, the camera operator and he didn’t notice but to be fair he was pretty into his podcast.) #2, it was intentional to be uncoordinated. We use skidding turns to turn 180 degrees faster so we can get “one line” and collect more pictures. #3, it was a light twin, we were low(ish) on fuel and that’s what enabled the airplane to be starved of fuel. Under normal circumstances this would not have happened.

Ok! Clear skies! Adios!

#16

This entire story occurred in less than 10 seconds and should’ve ended with headlines on CNN. Military pilot and not commercial but it still could’ve ended in a disaster.

Flying a CH47D Chinook helicopter in Iraq mid July 2008 when the temp was over 130 degrees. Packed full with 36 passengers at an altitude of only 100 feet and speed of 140 knots, (lower and faster than you’d ever fly in the US.). We hit a thermal (pocket of warm air) that pushed us up, so I nosed the cyclic (looks like a joy stick between your legs) forward to maintain altitude. I was a brand new pilot flying with a combat vet who wanted me to maintain altitude of 100 feet almost exactly, so no higher than 120 or lower than 80 feet) Nosing the aircraft down kept us from going higher, but we immediately hit a downdraft and the aircraft started to fall like a rock. I pulled back on the cyclic as hard as I could to get the nose up but it hit my body armor and wouldn’t go back any further. I watched the altimeter drop all the way to 19 feet and miraculously we started falling and began to climb at the last possible second.

During the debrief the other pilot (now one of my closest friends) who had well over 1,000 combat hours told me he’s never been so close to crashing before. I wasn’t shook up until I heard that….even typing this today gives me chills.

#17

Was learning to fly when I worked for the gov.
So on my first flight with me taking off, we’ve been climbing for about 5 minutes and We’re going through some gentle turns when instructor says.
“were going to head back I don’t feel well”
He takes over the stick and he looks ashen. He then starts to breath irratically and says I need to help him control the plane. He radios tower and up till now I’m thinking it’s a prank.
Mayday mayday.
He talks me through the whole thing, I’m trying to talk to the tower, repeat info, read guages remember lessons, listen to him and hope he don’t pass out. Take off is one thing, but landing?
We land like a kangaroo with a rocket, I’m supprise the wheels didn’t fold. Must of been 4 big bounces, but it’s a big runway.
Scrub speed, finally get the plane to stop and instructor passes out. He had an heart attack. He survived but only for a few months before I heard he passed away in his sleep. But he got us down. I never continued the lessons.

#18

I’m a CFI at this point and I’m flying with a student. We see a spider in the cockpit. I’m ok with spiders but I don’t want it distracting the student so I mash it.

Student missed the spider but saw my movement and asked what it was. I responded “It was a spider, I squished it” as I’m glancing into the backseat area. I manage to casually add “…why, are you scared of spiders?” without the student noticing the break in the sentence. Turns out the student is scared of spiders.

For the rest of that flight I squished spiders behind my students back as they came forward from the nest I had just spotted in the back of the plane. He never knew.

#19

The only example I can think of where several people messed up and passengers didn’t notice… a friend of mine took the wrong airplane. The aircraft was parked, fueled, and boarded correctly, but it was the wrong tail number. He actually did have an ‘ahah’ moment taxiing out. So he called dispatch and requested an amended release for the tail he was about to fly. But then he took off before receiving the amended release so that got him a review board. He had screwed up a few other things recently too regarding international paperwork so he was downgraded to the right seat for a time. Passengers didn’t know. It could have been my story, but every time I sat down in the cockpit I checked the tail number vs. the release. In one case where there was a mismatch, the passengers did notice because the aircraft were swapped at the gate, causing a delay.

#20

I was a c-141 navigator for my first AF assignment. We were flying a group of families moving back to the US from Japan. As we were in the approach at Travis Air Force base we had a massive multi bird strike. It sounded like the world was ending inside the cockpit it was so loud. Shattered glass that was coated in blood and feathers, bent radome, you name it. Flight controls were fine but we declared an IFE and the co pilot could see well enough out his window to land and I and the FE were over his shoulder to help spot however We could and we landed without incident. The passengers deplaned and even complimented us on the great flight. I will never forget the right side of the passenger bus driving away and the look of horror on those people’s faces when they saw what the front of that airplane looked like.

#21

Not a pilot.

Coming in from LAX to Dallas. Rough ride, bad storm. The captain comes on and says we will probably have to divert, but he “wants to try something” and we should all buckle up “for the fun of it”.

We dropped what felt like a couple hundred feet, and a crosswind took our left wing up. The whole plane starts screaming, and you can feel the plane moving sideways. About 50ft from the runway and we literally slide to the next runway over and hit the deck at full speed. Slam on the brakes, the whole plane lurches and buckles.

Pilot comes on the comm; “Wooooohoooo! Ladiesandgentlemen-WELCOME! To Dallas Ft. Worth. And if you could not tell my bosses I just did that I would appreciate it oh so very much. Please remain seated…”.

#22

About 15 years ago I was a passenger on a flight that started having bad turbulence. The flight attendants were serving drinks so they locked up their carts as the pilot told them to sit down. A minute into it I realized we were also descending very rapidly. I caught a glimpse of the two flight attendants holding hands and I thought wow, even they are scared and it really unsettled me. A minute later and we were still bumping around and descending fast, everyone starts gasping and a few people yell, drinks are flying everywhere. I don’t know why I had just assumed that if we were all about to die that the pilot would make an announcement, and then I realized that they probably wouldn’t say anything to keep everyone calm. I look at the flight attendants again and they are both sobbing, holding onto each other. I was pretty sure that if they knew we were about to die.

Obviously we all survived, and I have no clue what was going on or if we were ever in real danger but now I search the flight attendant’s faces whenever there’s any tiny bit of turbulence.

#23

My best friend’s dad was a pilot for Western and Delta for a lot of years. He’s always said that the most terrifying thing he experienced was flying into Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong. Due to the terrain and high rises at one end of the runway you had a pretty sharp right turn on final approach and it took you close enough to the high rises that you could see TVs in the apartments.

#24

Oxygen leak in the cabin. Didn’t know what was happening but there was a leak. And not enough fuel to fly at a lower altitude. Me in the copilot shut the cockpit door and redirected all remaining oxygen to us. The passenger “fell asleep”, woke up about an hour later when we landed. Said he must of dozed off and didn’t realize how tired he was.

#25

This was a few months ago. I took a couple family members up in a 1973 Cessna 172m that I had flown for maybe 6 hours before.(had about 80 hours in a 2006 Cessna 172s as well) When we first got up there was a little turbulence but it smoothed out quickly at altitude. I flew over the beach and around the city and then started my descent back into the airport after about an hour. As soon as we started descending it was apparent that winds had picked up and it was much more turbulent than when we left, but nothing I hadn’t dealt with before. As soon as I got over the end of the runway I heard the stall warning horn (means that the airplane’s wings are no longer supporting you due to lack of airflow) and started to panic a little when we started sinking maybe 75 feet off the ground. Without missing a beat I started to go around to retry the landing and almost ran into the same problem on the second attempt, but just landed a little faster than I normally would. Passengers had no idea anything was wrong until I told them afterwards.

#26

Late to the party but I’ve actually had a few of these moments.

I was flying late at night. One of my planes is a small six seat propellor aircraft (A-36). I was flying a group of people from Nantucket to Cape Cod.

About half way at cruising altitude, several of the passenger wanted to do a 360 degree turn to get a good view of the stars. Not only was it a cloudless night but it was also a night of a new moon. So there was zero light pollution. The stars were incredible and even the Milky Way galaxy was very visible.

And being up at altitude we had a 369 degree non obstructed view. Even as a pilot it was one of the most impressive viewings I’ve had.

I reduced my power and started a very low banked slow turn. As I’m enjoying the view the engine went from running nice and smooth to shaking the aircraft instantly.

Immediately I knew something was wrong with one of the cylinders. After inspecting my engine instruments and playing with the power and mixture settings I was able to determine that I still had detonation but one of my valves were probably failing.

My destination airport was the closest airport as we were in the middle of Nantucket Sound. I continued there at a higher than normal power setting because it seemed like it was forcing the failed valve to still open with the extra power. I kept my altitude until I knew I could make the airport and then went idle and glided all the way in.

Although I was glued to my instruments none of the passengers expected anything or even noticed the sudden change of the engine mid flight. Although the sound of the engine was questioned when we were on the ground. Which I had explained everything.

This unfortunately led to around $13k worth of engine work but she’s up and running now in tip top shape!

#27

Helicopter pilot here, no “passengers” per se, but two pilots and an aircrewman in the back. We were at a civilian airport working their runway at night time on night vision goggles.

On takeoff, there was a lot of chatter on our our second radio, so we turned it all the way down. It was just our base and maintenance frequency, and none of it pertained to us. We were just concerned with our primary radio – ground, tower, working area frequencies.

Later in the flight, as we approached the civilian airport, we changed our second radio from our base frequency to the civilian traffic frequency. It was night, so the only traffic is usually other military training flights, so we weren’t too worried about other aircraft. Alas, we made all the standard calls.

After about 3 laps in the pattern we stopped making calls, because we knew we were the only traffic. About 15 minutes later, as we turned onto final, we came right over top of another helicopter. I pulled in power and climbed away.

We realized that we had left our radio volume down, and didn’t hear the other aircraft coming in. We had taken a few laps off from making radio calls, and we were out of phase in the pattern and didn’t see the other aircraft. Scared me shitless coming right over top of another helicopter’s main rotors.

#28

When I was younger, I was with my dad who pilots a small plane. We where mid flight and the engine just started slowing down and the plane started descending crazy fast. It somehow picked up again before hitting the ground. Mind you this happened in under a minute. I didn’t panick or anything because I had no idea what was going on. I was like 3-4 so I only realised in hindsight what actually happened.

#29

I’m an airline pilot now, but my first job was flying banners. I have another good banner tow story, but I’ve told it before. I didn’t have passengers, but I had viewers, and from their perspective, nobody noticed. One day as usual I was given the job of heading to a fairly distant location, unpacking and setting up my banner, and picking it up and flying it. Setup went like it usually does, and I took off to pick the banner up.

In banner towing, the way it works is you’ve got a grappling hook at the end of a cable that’s attached to the tail of the aircraft. You take off without the banner attached, and come back around, swooping down steeply toward a loop of rope you have set up on the ground held up between two posts, running down to the banner. At the last second, you yank the plane back skyward, and the hook is supposed to swing between the posts and hook the rope.

On my pickup, I felt the satisfying pull of the banner as I levelled off, but something was wrong. It was pulling hard to the left side. A quick look to my left showed that I had missed with the hook, and instead caught the banner rope loop with my left main wheel. Even worse, instead of sliding up the gear leg to the fuselage, the rope had caught down near the wheel. I had been provided a steak knife for the purpose of cutting the rope, but there was no way I was going to be able to reach that rope.

The plane was yawing hard, but it was under control, and I flew slow circles around the airport while I thought about my options. I could always try to land the plane with the banner attached, but from what I’d heard, that usually results in the plane tipping over onto its nose, ruining the engine and propeller at the very least, and probably causing a lot more damage, not to mention the risk to my own life. I couldn’t cut the rope because I didn’t have the reach. Then I remembered what I did have- a small tool kit and a roll of duct tape in the pocket behind my seat. I thought about what I could use those to do, and it occurred to me that the empty second seat behind me also had a metal tube control stick. Well, it would be worth a shot.

I controlled the plane with my knees while I reached behind my seat to get the tool kit. Only a single bolt and nut secure the control stick to the tube below, but I had to access it blind, reaching below and behind me while also controlling the plane. After a couple of guesses as to which size socket to put on the ratchet, I had a good grab, and managed to get the nut off and extract the screw. A brisk pull up dislodged the control stick, it was working!

The stick was a couple feet long and I figured it would be enough to reach out the window and down to the rope. Still flying with my knees, I stuck the steak knife handle into the bottom end of the control stick, and wrapped a bunch of duct tape around the joint until I felt it would be secure. It was time to give it a try.

I lined back up for my pickup site and reaching as far out the left window as I could, while fighting the slip stream, I could just contact the rope. When I reached my target, I started sawing wildly at the rope, but it sliced through with surprising ease. I felt the plane lurch as the banner dropped back down to earth. I landed the plane and took a few minutes to breathe, thinking about what had just happened, and then what to do next. It occurred to me that I could tie a knot in the rope and just pick it up again. And that’s what I did. Suffice it to say I was a bit more careful this time, and everything went as planned. From the ground, the only thing anyone would have noticed is that a banner plane picked up a banner and just stayed in the area for a while, dropped the banner, then picked it up again and headed off.

#30

Yay, story time. I’m an air traffic controller, for the record.

Had a pilot go NORDO (that’s when, for whatever reason, they aren’t on my frequency anymore. They didn’t get the right one, misheard, or their radios broke). It happens fairly often, and there are a number of things we can do to get you back in the right place.

This particular guy, however, went NORDO at precisely the worst time. He was going eastbound, which means he was at an odd altitude. He lost his radio, and his flight plan then had him turn southbound. That means he was supposed to be at an even altitude, which he obviously wasn’t.

There were about a dozen different planes going northbound that were at his altitude, so he ended up running one heck of a gauntlet through all these people as I was descending and climbing them to get them out of his way.

Then, apparently in an act of sheer ignorance on the pilot’s part, he decided to choose an even altitude all by himself, knowing he should probably be at one.

Remember all those planes I had to move out of his way? He managed to put himself right back into them. When you have closure rates of over 1,000 knots, that’s not a lot of time to react to those things.

#31

When I was learning to fly there is a stage in your student license where you are awarded GFPT (general flying purpose test). This allows the student to fly by themselves or with passengers to the local training area from the aerodrome.

So there I am, 16 years old, pimple faced no life experience at all, thinking I’m the king. I was practicing engine failures in a Piper Tomohawk. This is where you are start at 3000ft, you pull the throttle back to idle and go through a series of steps deciding which field to land in. I go through the process and Im at a nice approach to land in some farmers field when I decide to “go around”. I apply full throttle at 500ft to end the excersise and my chair slides fully aft off the rails. I cannot reach the yoke nor any controls (it was discovered later that the “stops” that would have prevented the chair from falling off the rails were not installed. If I had set my chair correctly to begin with)

So there I am sitting in a descending aircraft, with no control, on my own.

I am desperately wrestling with my seat belt. The clutch mechanism of the seat belt is doing the trick where it is tightening every time I try to slowly pull at it. On each attempt it tightens further. I am now firmly up against the seat back of the chair. I am now 100ft to the ground when I remembered about my trim. Next to me, between the seat is a wheel that is used to trim the aircraft in different profiles.

I spin this wheel faster than any DJ has ever done so before. The yoke slowly retreats from the console/dash. I grab it arms outstretched and then complete the “go around”. I am now so close to the ground I can see the reverse cow lick of a grazing cow below me.

I climbed slowly back up to the top of the training area and flew back to the aerodrome straight away. I can honestly say that I lost my teenager cockiness from that incident.

I have another student pilot incident to add if anyone is interested to hear it

TL;DR I like flying planes when I can reach the controls. Not so much when I can’t.

#32

T-38C instructor pilot here. For everyone who isn’t familiar, all USAF pilots who fly fast pointy airplanes go through training in the T-38C. It’s a pretty old jet (flown since 1970) that is notorious for being underpowered with very tiny wings. Many a pilot have died during actual TP stalls in what we call the final turn, the 180 degree turn from downwind to final that military aircraft make in a single descending, relatively tight turn

Anyways, my student is extremely close to the runway on downwind, literally half as far from the runway as he’s supposed to be laterally. And because I’m relatively comfortable in the moment, I don’t tell him to discontinue his approach, break out, and re-enter the pattern to try again. Definitely a foul on me.

So he “rolls off” into his final turn, and I immediately assess that the turn is going to be too tight, and that we’re going to stall. I take control and start a go-around, immediately selecting maximum afterburner and pulling as tightly as possible. We’re going relatively slow, so we’re limited by the aircraft’s AoA available, not G’s. I’m pulling a maximum AoA turn trying not to overshoot the runway. This is important because we have a parallel runway that is occupied by other aircraft in their own VFR pattern. We still overshoot like big dogs, but we end up not stalling and successfully completing the turn. I de-configure and take a few seconds to calm down. My student had absolutely no awareness of the significance of what had just occurred. Suffice to say he had quite the debrief.

#33

Answering for my dad (now a 747 captain for British Airways) as he isn’t on Reddit.
He was SFO on a flight that had a terrorist attack attempt, a man broke into the cockpit, pulled the captain away from the controls and grabbed them pointing the nose straight down, trying to crash the plane directly into the ground. The captain (who was a Scottish man) said in an interview, in his strong Glaswegian accent, “I could see the only way to stop him was to seriously hurt him, so I did.” He stuck his thumbs into the eyes of the guy trying to take over the plane. He and my dad safely landed and the guy was arrested. They each got a bottle of Glenmorangie as a reward 😂.

#34

One time during glider training, I left my water bottle in the leather boot at the base of the control stick. I didn’t notice it until we were accelerating down the runway behind the towplane. Luckily it only restricted the large movements required during the first few seconds of the takeoff run, but i could still feel it binding up until I managed to reach down and grab it after reaching a safe altitude. The instructor wasn’t aware of the situation, but scalded me when he saw that I’d brought the bottle with me, saying, “loose objects in the cockpit can be very dangerous.” I didn’t have the balls to tell him about it during the debrief.