sinkrate3278

Wow, just wow.

CaptainCarl

Well, hell, that's about as bad as it gets. Except for maybe that Russian flight attendant that fell from 33,000' (after her airliner broke up) and lived.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87

KC135guy

While flying, on short final for 28L at BOI on a dual, we got hit by a microburst. Was able to keep it from going down in the grass between the runway and the guard side taxi way.

While working on engines at Plattsburgh, had a J57 compressor stall during a test cell run. I was underneath it adjusting the fuel control when it blew. I had to leave the run bay and use the bathroom.

Sitting right seat in a 111 at Upper Heyford, the crew chief was doing an accel/decel on the #2 engine when it had an AB blowout. Flames rolled out the inlet over the canopy and down the #1.

Right seat again on a 135 at Fairchild. Going for a start on #4. I told the left seat guy that EGT on 4 was going hot and my ground guy asked if we knew that the #4 was on fire. Chopped throttles and #4 stablized at idle, throttle in cutoff. Had to pull the fire T-handle to shut it down. Come to find out the throttle cables were changed and rigged in idle, not cutoff.

N9373M

We ran out of cognac and bread-sticks once.

Golden Bear

Good conversation, but might I suggest it would be a more productive one if we added to the OP's original question, "and what did you learn by it?"

This advancement of this profession is absolutely intertwined with our ability to learn from the experiences of others, both good and bad.

Roll Inverted and Pull

What I learned was this: don`t fly a plane if part of the equipment is an ejection seat and a parachute.

Airhoss

I've been on fire, I've made an off field dead stick, had an R-1340 blow up on me on rotation, landed in an ice fog on polar sea ice to pick up two dudes being stalked by a polar bear with the help of some 12 ga flares and a hand held radio. I've been loaded up with pretty serious ice on more than one occasion.

But ejecting and bouncing off the water with no chute deployment....Are you kidding me! You just can't follow a story like that.

bcrosier

Holy crap! Where did the bear get the flares and radio?!? I've heard people talking about the right to arm bears, but I had no idea it had come to this!

HercDriver130

Hum..... IP to drop zone over Rio Hato Panama Christmas of 1989....that was more like a 4th of July celebration than the "light resistance" we were told about...

Flying into Kuwait City Intl the morning after the Marines had "secured" the airfield......note to self.... "secured" does NOT mean the bad guys arent still shooting back...lol

oh...much more recent... was flying a Citation V our of a small uncontrolled airport in LA (Lower Alabama) had picked up our clearance on the ground as told to enter controlled airspace on a 360 heading off runway X at 2000'. Well as we leveled at 2000' TCAS shows a target with no altitude readout converging....shortly thereafter I saw the little bug smasher...yes smack at 2000' headed right for us...rolled left, bottom rudder to move the nose and pulled..... passed perhaps 150-200' below and left of target.... reported it to the controller.... went on our Merry way.....Passenger in the back never said a word. Got to our destination and there was a message at the FBO to call the office concerning the "incident". Called in and apparently while we were taxiing in the customer called his secretary and relayed what happened...telling his secretary "those boys saved my life...."....she called the company to let them know that the customer was very happy.....course then we had to explain to the DO what the incident was....LOL....all's well that ends well.

chrisreedrules

Lost an engine at 10,000 just after kicking some sky divers out the door of my 50's something 182. Prop went berserk and the governor broke, spewing oil all over the place. I ended up dead-sticking it in with the stall horn going off as I stretched my glide out over the numbers. That was a fun day.