Worst Plane Experience

...forgot to mention all the soldiers that got on in Moscow and got off loaded in Kabul!

Worst flight ever for me was Air France-Paris to New Delhi. Planes are ratty and crowded.
Told my travel companion I would take my chances riding on the wing on the return trip.

Sandym, looks like you really got a lot out of that flight! Not that I would like to pay any extra for all that added experience.

Last year I paid just under £800 for an economy flight between London and Calcutta with BA. The flight out was OK but coming back, just after take off the captain announced that they had forgot to load up with water, so there would be no tea or coffee in economy and could we use the toilet sparingly and if we did, to not wash our hands. It is only a nine hour flight! But the previous winter I flown with Aeroflot. I had flown with them a couple of times before with no problems but then I had the journey from hell. What was supposed to be a 14 hour flight, Delhi - London with a change in Moscow turned into a three (3) day nightmare. We had to hang around Delhi airport because they cancelled our tickets. We got to Moscow just in time to miss the last flight to London, they tried to feed us beef stew, which for me was no problem but most of the passengers were Hindu! And we had to sleep on the airport floor, whilst being harrassed by the cleaners. We were constantly lied to and basically treated like shit. Now I hate Russians and Aeroflot will never see another of my pounds again.
Oh, the joys of travel.......

My only negative experiences so far involved being squished between strangers, one who fell asleep and let his head fall onto my shoulders the entire trip........the other was on my return home from India when my head started itching and I realized I had contracted lice - drove me INSANE.

I had an experience similar to Indiamike's (top of thread) when returning from India in '97.

No illness at all during the trip (except when I interepreted the hallucinatory side-effects of Lariam as malaria). Ten minutes after the in-flight meal ran to the lavatory with what turned out to be a two-month bout with some weird gastro bug. Coincidence??

50th Independence Day in Bombay was an ample reward...

(Kudos on the site, indiamike! I'll try not to "lurk" as much from here on...)

had a little old lady steal my wallett during a bathroom break. Once a new yorker always, I reckon

I once flew Winnipeg-Toronto in 1991 after the Hamilton Tigercats (for the non-Canadians, a pro football team) had been moved to a regular flight (mine) after their own plane had mechanical problems.

I was in a centre seat with something resembling a human (only twice as big and way too energetic) on either side.

They relived their game all the way into Toronto...I beleive I still have some bruises that haven't healed.

Flying from Amsterdam to Toronto with KLM two years ago was quite an experience. As we were taxiing, the tv told us that we were going 300kms/hour, then the power went out and when we finally took off, we vierd drastically to the right, the side I was sitting on, and looked as though the wing almost hit the ground. That was definatly hair raising. The rest of the trip wast problem free though

Just this past summer I was on my way to Malaysia flying out of L.A. The entire trip was marked with some of the worst turbulance I have ever experienced! Even the stewarts looked a little worried, definatly not the most conforting thing ever!

I was a flight attendant for many years until after 9/11 when I decided I'd had enough. Over the years, I experienced a bomb threat, a mid-air collision with a duck that made a hole in the plane just under the Captain's windshield ( it a few inches higher and it could have been tragic), a rapid decompression when a cargo door hadn't been properly shut, an emergency landing when the pilots weren't sure if the landing gear was locked into position because the warning light was on (we landed safely but it was pretty nerve-racking waiting to see what was going to happen), being shot at (the plane) taking off from Bosnia, a hurricane in Miami and a typhoon in SE Asia (talk about turbulence!), several medical emergencies and one death on board, passengers that were drunk and disorderly, mentally disturbed, extremely rude or just plain nasty. I've lost count of all the times we had to have the "authorities" meet the plane.

In spite of all that, I still look forward to getting on an airplane - I suppose because now it is the start of a new adventure and not just another day at the office!

Good story mike...
Hard to beat, I will have to make someth... Uhm... I mean Try to remmeber some good airoflot expirience...

Thankfully, I've nothing to contribute on this thread and I hope it stays this way !

the strangest experience I ve ever had was when I d been 12 years old
I was flying with my father,he had been a hobby pilot for 30 years or more,
the fligth was running very smoothly,but suddenly my father stopped the engine,pretending something was going wrong,he started to "panic",
trying to start the engine on and on,flying like crazy,loopings and loopings,
up and down,up and down,
son,he said:we are going to die.....

well we didn t...

well I still love his black humour

How I wish I could complain about having champagne spilled on me

I once had a pot of coffee spilled on me, fortunately I was wearing a brown dress anyway so it didn't show, and my legs were miraculously unburnt!

Speaking of spilling coffee, I was on a Garuda Indonesia DC10 in 1989 which hit terrible turbulance as I held a freshly poured cup. I was unable to put it down because we were shaking up and down so hard and even if I could have put it on the tray table it'll have flown straight off and landed all over me anyway. So it was scalding my hand.

To this day that's the worst turbulance I've ever experienced.