Worst flight turbulence you've experienced?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate flying and this thread is making me so scared and nervous for my upcoming trips this summer.

Every single person posting here got through it. If you're at 35,000 feet it feels terrible to drop 300 feet but you are literally miles away from crashing. Planes are built to fly. It takes more than a little turbulence to cause a real problem, and the pilots have a lot of training and information to avoid the real problems. Keep your seatbelt on as much as possible and know that once you've driven to the airport you're past the most dangerous part of the trip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate flying and this thread is making me so scared and nervous for my upcoming trips this summer.

Every single person posting here got through it. If you're at 35,000 feet it feels terrible to drop 300 feet but you are literally miles away from crashing. Planes are built to fly. It takes more than a little turbulence to cause a real problem, and the pilots have a lot of training and information to avoid the real problems. Keep your seatbelt on as much as possible and know that once you've driven to the airport you're past the most dangerous part of the trip.

This is all correct. One death on a commercial US flight in the last 9 years. That's with over 2 million people getting on a commercial flight each day. It's absolutely incredible and we should all be so thankful for the people that design, test, fix and oversee the aviation industry. It's a great example of how solid government oversight (overall) can be such a force for good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine was Miami to New Orleans. The pilot warned us it would be a rough ride, and boy was he right. I thought I was going to die surrounded by a$$holes, which is another story in itself.

I was on a really rough flight from SFO to New Orleans once. We landed so hard and so fast that everything that wasn't bolted/belted down or secured under a seat went flying to the front of the plane. This was Southwest.

[Anonymous]

Intellectually, I know the plane is almost certain to withstand turbulence. But I still hate the feeling (and, yes, I hate theme park rides for the same reason). Does anyone take Xanax or have other tips for dealing with that heart-stopping feeling? Do you take it as soon as you board just in case?

[Anonymous]

my cousin spent his career as a commercial pilot. He said that they safest time in an airline flights is when you are flying; turbulence is unpleasant but doesn't cause the airplane to crash.

[Anonymous]

Flight to Australia from LA.

In the middle, over the Pacific, at night.

I was genuinely scared. The 747 was all over the place and I truly thought that was the end!!

[Anonymous]

On a flight from LAX to Sydney it was totally calm and then suddenly hit an air pocket and dropped 30 feet. People hit the ceiling. And then after that...nothing. Not even a small bounce until we landed. It was like we hit a tree somewhere over the Pacific.

One flight from London to Boston it was so turbulent they never served drinks or food for the entire flight. This was back in the day when they often flew with empty seats -- so I scrambled back to an unoccupied row, stretched out and clipped myself in with several seatbelts - sausage-like. Read my book and chilled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Intellectually, I know the plane is almost certain to withstand turbulence. But I still hate the feeling (and, yes, I hate theme park rides for the same reason). Does anyone take Xanax or have other tips for dealing with that heart-stopping feeling? Do you take it as soon as you board just in case?

I take Xanax for every flight. I pop one when I leave the house for the airport. Depending on flight length, I'll take another half before boarding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Flight to Australia from LA.

In the middle, over the Pacific, at night.

I was genuinely scared. The 747 was all over the place and I truly thought that was the end!!

Poster just under you -- maybe we were on the same flight!!!

[Anonymous]

Two times I’ve had the ultimate tuvil nice experience. Once I was flying during the summer from DC to Puerto Rico, blue skies somewhere over the Atlantic, when I suddenly heard the engines of the plane roar. I thought for a second how odd it was to power up in mid flight when suddenly the plane lurched up violently, curved over and then plummeted what seemed to be a few hundred feet. After that shock and all of us looking at each other in disbelief, the plane did it again. This time we rolled sideways to the right, plunged a few hundred feet like a roller coaster before righting ourselves again. Some poor little kid who didn’t have his seat belt on flew into the overhead bin and gashed his head. Emergency personnel met us in San Juan to get the kid medical attention. This is why I a,ways wear my seatbelt no matter what. The pilot said later it was due to thunder clouds of warm air or something, and that the plane literally flew over this pockets.

Second time was flying from Toronto to DCA. Horrible weather. Wind gusts of over 60 miles per hour. I thought we were going to die trying to land. My young daughter was the on,y one on the plane verbalizing how scared she was and asking if we were going to crash. Everyone else remained silent in prayer. The plane was skating so hard and dropping it felt like a struggle to control it. Even the pilots voice was shaking from the turbulence. We tried to land once and aborted. Tried a second time. Finally made it. We applauded. My husband and I aged 20 years after that flight. We came home and had some hard liquor that night to calm our nerves. I thanked the female pilot and her co pilot for their nerves of steel.

[Anonymous]

The point is thought...that turbulence really won’t kill you. The plane is built for it. It’s just a really scary and unpleasant side effect of flying. But you will be fine!

[Anonymous]

I hate turbulence too, but try to remember that people do this for their jobs every day and they want to come back to their families just as much as you do.

I also read that people really can't gauge how much a plane drops- it feels like 100s of feet, but in reality may be like 10 feet or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not turbulence per se, but many years ago I was flying from JFK to Rome and I had a window seat and soon after take-off I saw flames come out of an engine and the plane shuddered. A few minutes later the pilot announced that we needed to return to JFK but we needed to dump fuel over the Atlantic because we would land too heavy. The entire runway was lined with fire trucks on our touchdown and a bunch of tires blew out. It turned out that we had hit birds.

We had the same thing happen LAX to Sydney. Ended up being a 9 hour flight to nowhere. And the guy in front of me was having seizures and had checked his medication through. I had taken a bunch of valium to ensure that I would sleep during the flight and it was a surreal experience to say the least.

The worst turbulence I was ever in was in a small plane flying from a tiny island back to the main airport in Fiji. There were about 8 nuns on the plane, all praying the entire time. I'm not religious at all, but in that moment, I was definitely thinking to myself, this plane can't crash with all these nuns on it...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Flight into Denver many years ago. On descent we'd hit air pockets and drop 30'. Scary! We survived...

I have heard other horror stories about Denver turbulence. We’re flying ther for vacation this summer. I hate turbulence and am already concerned!

The worst turbulence I ever experienced was also on a flight into Denver. Several big drops in air pockets--it felt like being in free fall. I rarely get queasy on flights, and I nearly vomited it was so bad. The captain came on several times to reassure everyone that we weren't all going to die.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Intellectually, I know the plane is almost certain to withstand turbulence. But I still hate the feeling (and, yes, I hate theme park rides for the same reason). Does anyone take Xanax or have other tips for dealing with that heart-stopping feeling? Do you take it as soon as you board just in case?

I take Xanax for every flight. I pop one when I leave the house for the airport. Depending on flight length, I'll take another half before boarding.

I take a Xanax when I get to my gate. I probably fly 4x a year. I don't really need it, but it helps, and when I am with my family (who are all totally fine to fly) it helps me tamp down my anxiety and set a good example for my still young kid.

I don't take Xanax for anything else habitually. I think I took it once before my child's medical procedure, once before a particularly stressful set a visitors arrived, and that's all I can remember taking it for.