My friend's boss (a San Francisco Attorney) was aboard this New Orleans to SF commercial jet flight yesterday.
He's back home safely now, but with frayed nerves.

Watch the video news story here (starts after 30 sec ad).

Wow, good for them. I went through a scary thing similar to that years ago.

Hi Bill, please share your scary experience in the air. What happened?

All I can say is the recent blown off roof situation with Southwest Air and now this, It certainly does'nt help my already increased anxiety about flying. Parts and metal fatigue of an aging 737 fleet, plus inspection oversights and a cost cutting repair schedule means the chance of these tyoe of incidents happening again will certainly increase over time. Add that to the fear of onboard terrorist attack. Pretty ominous considering the fact if something goes wrong miles up in the air, you can't simply pull over. When I was a kid, I really relished flying. Not so anymore. Anybody else?

My best buddy is a captain at US Airways (Airbus 330) and flies the Philly to Rome route (after two years of flying the Philly to Paris route). He routinely DRIVES from Wilmington, DE to his 'other' home in Hilton Head, SC because he refuses to fly on the company's commercial flights (although he can fly 'free'). Personally, I think he's nuts but there MAY be a message there. We're not talking about an infrequent, white-knuckled, passenger-type here; Bob is an ex-fighter jock (Vietnam) and career airline pilot. He won't go into detail about why he won't fly commercial but HIS reluctance certainly makes ME nervous . The fact that we (he and I) have flown over Lake Michigan in a single and a light twin (my Mooney 205 and his C310F) on the way to Oshkosh, WI, proves he's not your basic coward, but still there is something about airline flights that really bother him (probably the fact that HE'S not PIC (pilot in command). Still, for all the reasons that Scott mentioned, I too, have become a very reluctant flyer. My son and I (he soloed at 16, private on 17th birthday) rented a Cirrus SR22 yesterday to shoot over to the Masters (Augusta, GA) to watch the practice rounds (eat your heart out DonM and TonyMads ) and the high winds made it a VERY exciting little flight. I have a few pics which I might post over on the BAR for Don and Tony's benefit). Couldn't believe how many people show up and how much they're willing to pay to watch a bunch of rich golfers shoot PRACTICE rounds (oh wait, I'm one of them - although my son paid for everything, except for splitting the plane rental). A fun day and a nice way to spend a little quality time with my son.

BTW, the '37 has a VERY checkered past, especially the 737-300. Stay off of that one if you can. That's not the way I want to meet Miles and Oscar and Chet and .........Elvis .

chas

I didn't know anything about the Southwest Air thing you mentioned. A google provided this below... don't read if you don't want to take the chance of increasing your fear of flying. (For the fearless, read that last story about the pilot who survived a cockpit window blowout! I bet he counted his lucky stars.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42434710/ns/travel-news/

As for my story, I have written about this at length over the years, I wish I could find it. Another attempt...

Flying back to USA from Bahamas, probably 1982. I told my biz partner I was going to leave our middle section seats in a big L-1011 (I think that was the model), as I wanted a window seat to view the Bahama banks. I was studying geology at the time and wanted to check out the deposition patterns from way up high.

So, I took a window seat after we got up a ways. I was also a student pilot and loved to fly. Knew a bit about flying. Before we reached cruise altitude, I sensed that we were not climbing and I knew for sure that we had not come close to 36,000 feet, which is what the pilot had said we would cruise at. So, I had a hmmmm moment. Checked the engines on my side and asked the guy next to me to step over and look out the window and view engines on the other side. No problems. After a few minutes, I told him, Something is wrong, I just know it. This ain't right.

Not long after, the oxygen masks of the entire airplane cascaded down. Began at the front of the airplane, advancing to the rear rapidly. Only took a second or two. Kind of like a row of dominoes falling. One lady screamed out "Help me Jesus." That was not a good sign.

The stewardesses scrambled around and the one that passed me in a dead run had the fear of God in her face. After a while, a pilot came on and said something about listening to the flight attendants about how to use your oxygen mask. I put my on but couldn't tell anything was happening. I guess I expected a rush of air or something, haha.

As all of this was going on, I thought we were going to die. Actually, I rapidly began to plan how to survive. After a minute or so, I jumped up and went back to my partner and his wife. She was crying. I thought to myself, "Man, I don't want to die, I ain't ready. Dang it, mama." My life rushed before my eyes, no fooling. I remember thinking of newspaper headlines about us crashing out there.

So, I'm thinking, where are the exit doors? Okay, I gotta get my butt out that door and tread water and fight off the sharks, but I'm going to try to live. I guess it was the most afraid I've ever been regarding imminent death. Except that time that I fooled around with Jerry Sue Wadsworth and didn't know she had a boyfriend, an ex-NFL linebacker who lost his football fortune and joined the Hell's Angels, and who came home unexpectedly. I ran like a whipped puppy. Glad I had taken a cab to her house and my car was elsewhere because if I had stopped to get in my car, he would've killed me. I ran my ass off, shuckin' and jivin' through the neighborhood. Whew, close one! Man, she shoulda tole me dat! Sometimes, I think women don't care if you get killed. Like some kind of sordid game.

Back to the Atlantic...

It took forever for them to explain that they had incurred loss of pressurization. All this time, we are going down, down, down. That is what was so nerve-wracking. The going down part and there ain't nothing out there but water. There is no land in sight. After another long wait, the pilot announced that he was going to descend to a few thousand feet and establish cruise at that elevation. It looked like you could touch the water but it was probably 5,000 feet.

After a long time (I don't know how long but I'm guessing over 30 minutes), he came on and said that they think a baggage door popped open and that we would be okay, but that he would remain at that altitude but he could not land in Florida for some reason and would go ahead and fly to Atlanta, Georgia, our scheduled arrival airport. Okay, we're going to live, fine.

Wrong. We got to the mainland and there are thunderstorms popping everywhere and we had had blue skies over the ocean. They are so numerous, he, apparently, could not fly around all of them. The ride is the worse airplane ride of my life and I've been on some doozies. That plane is bouncing around all over the place. Some drops, you'd lose your stomach. I'm a pilot, I love to fly and somewhat of a daredevil, but that was not fun. People were scared out of their wits and it was really quite something.

Once we touched down, my partner said she would never fly again. I don't know if she has stuck to that. When I got back to my office, I felt I must write Delta airlines and tell them that IMO, somebody should have calmed us down FAR earlier than when they did. Tell us that we had not been attacked or something and hey, just checking things out as we descend down to where you can breathe without oxygen. They wrote me back after several weeks and the letter, IMO, was somewhat condescending. Not very apologetic, the tone was... the pilots were doing all they could to figure out what was going on, so "kwitcherbichin." I was not rude in my letter, just stating my case. I still think they should not have kept us in the dark for so long with us thinking that we were going to crash. I mean, heck, the stewardesses were instructing us on how to survive crash impact and what to do in the ocean. It was badass. Of course, they had no choice but to do that in the first few minutes.

As for flying since, yes, I have, and have had no problems. Except, last time I flew, I made the comment that I may not ever fly again if I can't fly first class. I have not flown in quite a few years until a few months ago, and I promise you, I have not grown. But the seats have shrunk, I just know it. I could not get comfortable, no matter which way I turned. I'm 6'2", not a giant but not short. I was miserable. And then, the hassle of airport security. What a PITA.

Ditto Scott about flying years ago, but not anymore.

I disliked flying enough that in 2004 we drove to Florida to visit family rather than fly. That won't happen unless we don't have a choice. It took longer to drive from my home to NYC (180 miles) than a direct flight to Tampa or Orlando via Southwest and yes on a 737-700 our airline of choice because of the 2 hour 40 minute frequent direct flights to our destinations in Florida. I know that aircraft has a checkered past and I still don't like flying. But despite the years of sweaty palms and white kunckles I try to minimize the impact by to "turning it over". It's my not my will, if my time has come so be it. Sure I want to live as long a life as possible but if I were to go down in a plane on our next flight I've had a good life. Of course, I may have different thoughts if the plane I'm in is going down

And if a former pilot won't fly I've got to believe there's lots of things slipping by safety inspections.

Something to make you feel better ?

According to the report:

2.4 billion people flew safely on 36.8 million flights last year;
There were 17 plane-destroying accidents of western-built jets, down two from 2009;
There were 94 accidents of all aircraft types, built anywhere, up four from 2009;
There were 23 accidents with fatalities for all aircraft types, up five from 2009;
786 people died in crashes of all aircraft types, up 101 from 2009;
Runway incursions (where an aircraft goes off the runway) were the most-common type of accident, accounting for 21 percent of the total.

Source http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/2011/02/23/2010-was-safest-year-ever-for-flying/

You are more likely to die driving to the grocer's, than in a plane. Is anyone white-knuckled about a trip to Wal-Marts?

You should be...

Diki that is pretty funny and there's lots of truth in that especially if you've ever been on Route 200 in Ocala going to a Wal-Mart when the snowbirds are in town. Lookout!!!

Steve ... why do you have to go to Ocala?!? ... just take a ride on Rt. 2!!!




I am REALLY disliking you right now chas ... but it's only the ENVY!!!