Have you ever experienced an emergency in the air? I'd love to hear some stories!

Personally, I've fortunately never gone through anything serious. The closest I've come was on a Delta MD-80 to Atlanta through a huge thunderstorm and severe turbulence. We got hit by lightning sometime during the approach, and after landing I saw where the lightning had struck - there was a big, black streak that ran up from the nose the the windscreen on the captain's side. Not really an emergency, but it was still quite a sight. No doubt gave the pilots quite a scare.

I'm sure someone here can top that

Never an emergency. A woman once died on my flight. She was in her 90's, and she died in her sleep. Sad but peaceful. It wasn't an emergency, and there was really nothing that warranted an unscheduled landing.

I was on a ORD-SFO flight a few years ago where a man collapsed/fainted and the F/A did a "Is there a medical professional on board?" call. I think he was fine, but initially we thought we would be diverting to DEN.

I also had a friend on a IAH-IND flight a few years back which diverted to El Dorado, AR after someone detected smoke in the cabin. Everyone was fine, but the passengers had to de-board via forklift, were bussed on a school bus (in the night) to Little Rock, and a relief flight operated LIT-IND the following day.
Not sure what ever really happened on the flight, i.e. what caused the smoke, but supposedly the passengers weren't that angry over the experience.
Red Cross I believe bought the full manifest hamburgers in El Dorado.
Another person I met was a F/A on a UA DC10 SFO-HNL? back in the 1990s? that had an engine fire/fall of mid-ocean. Again, no casualties, but the F/A really tried to distract the passengers from the "minor technical difficulty" as they diverted back to SFO. I heard the plane was quickly (as fast as possible) whisked out of sight to the maintenance hangars.

I was boarding a DL 757 to go hang out in SFO as I went into my third year of residency. I'd been offered a job there for after residency and I was excited about moving back, so I went to visit my friends.

The flight was already about three hours late. On boarding, I noticed that there was a *very* old lady sitting in the front of Y class. She was unconscious with her mouth open and her tongue hanging out (we call that the "positive Q sign" in medicine, and it's usually not reversible) and wearing a nasal cannula for oxygen.

"Welp," I said to myself, "I predict that she is going to become a problem somewhere over Nebraska and because I'm a pediatrician and I have no idea what to do with a lady that age, I'm going to make us land and we're probably not making it to SFO tonight."

Sure enough, we were over western Nebraska, just crossing into Colorado when *DING!* and they asked for someone onboard with medical training. I drew a deep sigh and pressed the call button.

The patient, it turns out, was a 22mo boy who had developed a fever and started vomiting. And I knew exactly what to do. I had the F/A bring me a liter of water and as many sugar packs as she could assemble. Using this and the salt packs, I was able to improvise a WHO Oral Rehydration Solution right there. With a 5mL syringe from the medical kit, I asked the parents to give the child 5mL every 5 minutes. The kid vomited a few more times, but he stayed clinically hydrated. I stayed in touch with the Flight Deck through all of this and basically reassured them that we could proceed to SFO but would they mind seeing if we could expedite? They obliged. On arrival, EMS took the kid to a local hospital. I never heard a peep out of the little old lady.

A F/A asked me for my boarding pass and took down my info. A few weeks later, I got a letter from the Chief of Operations at DL thanking me profusely for my expert medical care that had saved them a medical diversion and hailing me as a hero. They rewarded me with a truly enormous mileage dump into my account worth two domestic roundtrip tickets. I was a bit taken aback; I had just been doing my duty as a pediatrician, and frankly there was a bit of self-interest in my actions because I wanted to get to SFO. But I did appreciate it...and I did use the miles.

NW 68Y 15NOV2006 DTWAMS A330
A couple of hours after we left from DTW and as we were into the beginning of the "big arch" over the Atlantic, a diabetic passenger realized he left home without insulin. Rather than risking it over the Atlantic, the captain veered into a 180° heading towards Boston (I clearly remember it on the small PTVs). As the aircraft went through a minimal percentage of fuel burning and as the flight crew did not discharge any of it, we landed overweight at BOS. Needless to say, upon landing we had multiple EMS and fire engines awaiting for us, escorting us to the gate. There, they disembarked the passenger and we had to wait for over two hours, as the heavier aircraft weight overheated the brakes, which had to cool-off. I remember asking NW staff at BOS whether the passenger would have incurred the expense of the stopover and being answered that as this was an involuntary stopover, NW would have footed the bill. After a couple of hours, we took off again to AMS without no further inconvenience.

The closest I've come to it is a medical diversion, flying DL LAS-ATL we were over Oklahoma when the ding "are there any medical professionals onboard" announcement was made, credit to the crew up front, they kept everyone informed of what was going on including the point at which we were diverting, we were pretty close to OKC and the descent was, well let's say spirited for a passenger flight, though I am sure the WN one was a heck of a lot quicker.

The wife and I moved back into economy so the nurse and patient could have some space.

After EMS had taken the patient off the aircraft we moved back to our seats, all told we were on the ground for about an hour, once we were back up to cruising alt the captain came on the pa to let everyone know DL was holding flights so connections were safe, as it was we ended up landing maybe 20 minutes late.

A couple of days later I got an email thanking us for our help (all we did was give up our seats for 30 minutes) and like Doc, they deposited a nice amount of miles in my account.

A side note, I have more miles in my Skypesos account than I can ever use, one thing those of us at work who fly a lot do as my work allows us to keeps the miles as one of the perks is we donate part of our yearly mileage to Make a Wish, when I reached out to DL to ask them to transfer those miles DL actually matched them.

For those of us that have more miles than they can use, here is a link

http://wish.org/ways-to-help/giving/air ... 16hnpbq26v

I've gone through a mechanical declared emergency. I've told this story here before, but since you asked, I'll tell it again. (It's therapeutic anyway.)

It was 1980 and just after the DC-10's type certificate was restored. AA 191 was still on everybody's mind, including mine, even as an 8 year old. I was flying alone from EWR-SFO on United, and was a little scared when I saw a DC-10 sitting at the gate upon arrival to the airport. My mom reassured me that everything would be fine, and I got on the plane.

Just after takeoff, I heard a group of people on the other side of the plane screaming and looking frantically out the window; someone on the aisle pressed the FA call attendant button and quickly motioned for her to come over. She ran over to the window and looked out, then ran back up to the phone to call the pilots. I couldn't really see what was going on but I did see a blue glow around the windows and I felt us leveling off.

Everybody was looking around asking each other what happened. I remember someone behind me saying "engine exploded". I was convinced we'd be going down just like AA 191, because first of all, I was 8 and alone, and second, I didn't really know what was going on and just assumed the worst. I didn't know if the engine was still attached, if it was an ongoing fire, or what. I remember I started crying, and initially I had no one to comfort me or anything - my row was empty. (This was common in those days!)

At a certain point the flight crew came on the PA, said we'd had an engine fire (I think his exact words were "we had a little fire back there") but that it was out, the engine was shut down and we were heading back to Newark. He told us to expect a full emergency landing, with equipment waiting for us, and that we'd have to pay attention to the FA's for instructions.

It seemed to take forever to get back to the airport, but I'm sure it was probably 10-15 minutes.

The FA's instructed us on how and when to take our brace positions and generally prepared the cabin. I do remember shortly before landing one of the FA's finally came over and sat down for a couple minutes with me; she apologized because she didn't realize I was traveling alone. I guess somebody told her or she checked if there were any unattended kids on board. She tried to tell me everything was going to be fine and that they'd have somebody take me off the plane and stay with me if necessary after we landed. (This was before cell phones or anything so my mom didn't know what was going on, and was on her way home.) I felt a little better after that.

The FA's had us take brace positions just before landing. I snuck a peak out the window as we crossed the threshold and saw all the emergency vehicles waiting for us - they chased us down the runway just like in Airport 75. But it turned out to be an uneventful landing and IIRC, we actually parked at the gate, with our busted up engine and everything for all to see.

I actually wondered later why they made everything so dramatic at the end, and years later I realized it's probably because we were overweight and they were worried about a landing gear fire and/or some other runway mishap caused by being overweight.

The interesting thing is that afterwards, my mom had gone home and the airline assured her I was fine and would be put on the next flight out, so they had me and one other kid who was traveling alone (a girl about my age) stay with this guy who worked for the airline at the terminal in his little office. He was clearly pressed into service for this; he didn't really know what to do with us. But he was really nice, and at one point he took us out for ice cream sundaes at one of the airport restaurants. Then he put us both in first class on the next flight, which was a late night flight that was utterly empty. I was still scared and didn't really want to fly again right away, but I was just a kid so I did what the adults told me. I made friends with that girl, though, and being the only people in first class, we pretty much did whatever we wanted for that flight. Those were the days also when they had a card table in first class, so the whole thing felt like a lounge and we played cards and other games, ate our dinner etc. at that table. The FA's on that flight were also really nice to us and just gave us food, snacks and drinks constantly, plus all the little toys they kept around for kids, whether we asked or not. I remember that flight almost as much as the incident flight.

I didn't realize it right away, but this incident, coming when it did, made me afraid of flying for a really long time. I loved planes and aviation and I did afterwards too, but just me personally getting on a plane always filled me with dread. I'd drive anybody to the airport and I loved to hang out there, but if I had to fly myself, I'd be gripping the arm rests and sweating my way through every flight. It took me a really long time to get over that. Today I'm not a nervous flier, although I am maybe more aware of what's going on than most people. I don't sleep through takeoffs like my wife does!

dfwjim1 wrote:

I am surprised that an 8 year old was allowed to travel by himself.

It's not that unusual. The age limit is 5.

dfwjim1 wrote:

I am surprised that an 8 year old was allowed to travel by himself.

Pound-for-pound probably more well behaved than many of the onboard idiots we've read about over the years.

I can remember flying SAT- DFW on DL (so early 90s). Apparently, an indicator light for the nose gear did not come on (showing it as down and locked). We flew by the tower, so the could look at it with binoculars. We landed w/o incident (the captian's guess was that perhaps the bulb was burned out). DL sent a note of apology and a 75 dollar credit to me (and I guess everyone else on board).

I had a flight last September on Andes Lineas Aereas. We tried to fly from Buenos Aires to Iguazú. After takeoff we flew rather slowly while the pilots tried to extend and retract the flaps a couple of times. It turned out that the left slat didn’t retract properly so we went back to AEP.
I find it noteworthy that the crew (both cabin and flight crew) only made announcements in Spanish. Prior to touchdown we were instructed to adopt the brace position (also only in Spanish) without any instruction on how to do so. It ended up being a normal landing. Two hours later they put us on the same plane (LV-HHK) to give it another try which actually worked out.

A few years back, was flying from CAI to BCN to join a cruise hours after we were scheduled to land in Spain. Mid-flight, a member of our group became unconscious and a doctor had to be called. The man was in his 60s, but as far as I knew was in good health. The doctor helped revive him, and I was glad that in 20 minutes or so everything was starting to go back to normal. As I knew the family well, I was very worried. I admit that I was a bit selfish in hoping that the man could recover in order for us to make it to Barcelona on time, and join the cruise ship.
Most of the flight was over water. The flight leaves CAI and heads west over the Mediterranean, getting close to Malta and then Tunis. A diversion could have meant a significant detour especially as we flew parallel to the Libyan coastline for quite some time.