I think my wife has a death wish, she has hiked all over the word and wanted me to accompany her to Nepal. To hike the mountains in Nepal we had to fly from Kathmandu to Luka . We had a group from all over the United States and people from many occupations. My wife and I are pharmacists, but there were two physicians (Father and daughter) and many other occupations represented. One of the occupations was captain of an airliner. When in the plane we could see the cockpit and right out the front window. It was a small twin engine plane. When the plane turned or was under stress you could feel the metal bend. My heart was in my mouth as we left Kathmandu, and when the arrival airport was in sight we didn't start to loose altitude, but we circled the airport while on the ground they were blowing horns or something to chase the cows off the runway. As we were circling the lady that was a captain for a major airline in the United States, said "the runway is not long enough for this plane to land". That wasn't very comforting. As we finally started to descend and circled around to approach the runway it got worse. It appeared that we were headed into the granite of the mountain. Slowly we ascended to the runway which started on the edge of the mountain. What the captain couldn't see from the air was the landing strip was on a hill, and we landed on the lower end, and the plane went up hill as it was stopping. So gravity helped but that plane took ever inch of that runway to stop.... Leaving was like a roller coaster because the plane went down hill gaining speed, and fell off the cliff like a roller coaster until it gained enough speed to gain lift. I'm thankful that I survived that trip, glad I saw the mountains and Everest, but in the future I'll just look at pictures.
Not a plane incident comment, just a thank you for the podcast. We are heading to Christchurch and New Zealand and Australia in another month. Good tidbits on Christchurch and the weather there. You helped our decision making on what to pack! Have an enjoyable trip to Sydney - I lived there many years ago when the Sydney Opera House was just being constructed. They helped fund its construction through a national lottery. All the best to you and your son and thank you for your advocacy work on the consumer's behalf.
I flew on what i would call a puddle jumper from Boston to Augusta, Maine. It was one of those small, regional planes where there is only one seat per side of the aisle and they had to balance out the passenger load. A small curtain left open the entire short flight separated the cockpit from the cabin. We encountered very thick fog which left zero visibilty. As we decended rapidly to land, it felt as if we were plunging straight down to the ground. You saw what the pilots saw - absolutely nothing. I thought we would crash. The next thing to appear in the windshield was the start of the runaway just inches below us. The plane dropped to the tarmac with a huge jolt. I was never so releaved to be down.
My husband and I were in Australia at Cooper Pedi. We were catching a plane to go to the Bungle Bungles. 12 seater, mail plane. we took off and while we were taking off the engine caught fire and he kept on flying. We turned around with flame and smoke pouring out of the engine and on the runway was flashing lights, firetrucks, and people in white hazmat suits. WTH. We thought we were done for. Funny thing is that they had on hand extra engines and just replaced the bad one. Really??? We were stuck there as C.P is in the middle of nowhere so we had to get on that little plane to get out of there.
Had a close call in New Orleans once. We were descending normally, and then all of a sudden we went into a hard climb for a go-around. Found out later there was a small aircraft on the runway.
I don't know that this was actually dangerous but I think a lot of my fellow passengers would have disagreed. Back in the 1970s Eastern had the very popular Eastern Shuttle between DCA and LGA. There was a flight every hour and no reservation was needed -- just show up at the gate and fill out a boarding pass, and pay on the plane. $21 (or $17 student standby with an ID). And if there were more people than seats in the 727, they'd run a second section on an Electra prop jet.
One time in '74 I was on a second section flight to LGA that ran into some really bad thunderstorm activity. That plane bounced around so badly, a lot of people were clearly terrified. And nearly everyone got sick. I may have been the only one (other than the flight crew) who didn't. I have never experienced anything like that since.
Two "non"memorable flights: one into Boston Logan in the middle of a thunderstorm when we hit the water briefly before the landing strip (I saw the water splash up) and the other a scary landing on a flight from Chicago to Bangor Maine in the middle of a blizzard (in the days you could listen into the cockpit). The runway hadn't been plowed and the pilot yelled into the mike for the plows to get moving before we could land. We circled several more times and the plows did come out, but we still skidded to a stop. Said my prayers that night!
I flew Katmandu to Lukla and had the same experience as David Kazarian. I was also on an Air NZ flight from Auckland to LAX. About 3 hours into the flight we were told we had to return to Auckland due to a mechanical problem. After worrying about that as we headed back to Auckland, we found out later that it was a windshield wiper problem.
Several times, once, on a flight from Madrid to Paris...because of snow storm, ( ist time in Nov
at that time) our flight was diverted back to Madrid/ another time, on a flight from NY to somewhere( I forgot)..up on the air, nose blade of the plane was getting loose, we were asked to
brace until we landed, had to remove our shoes,etc. and went down/back to the NY airport safely.
Everytime I fly, I pray before take off, and pray for safety before landing..My favorite saints,:
Sts. Padre Pio and St. Jude..and of course Jesus and Mary!!!! Pray,pray,pray!!!
1970 on a flight to Angkor Wat beginning the descent for landing the sky lit up with what I thought was fireworks. All of the sudden the plane rose at a high speed. We were notified the flight was diverting to Phnom Phenh. After landing we were informed that the bright lights weren't fireworks but artillery. Phnom Phenh was under siege and we spent 3 days locked in our hotel before being returned to Hong Kong. I still haven’t made it to Angkor Wat😔
1991: NW airlines Narita to NY. 45 minutes out they told us there was something wrong with the plane and we had to turn back. There were firetrucks approaching the runway as we landed. We had to go down the chutes from the emergency exits, on the slides. I did not see the fire over the left wing until it was my turn to exit down the chute.
Flying in and out of Aspen Co on commercial flights AND privates! When you leave Denver and the pilot announces there will be no service on the short flight and to stay seated at all times you know you're in for a doozy.
We could see the runway and he overshot it and diverted us to Grand Junction because of winds.
Christchurch--big disappointment in 2023. The cathedral was still under construction, and the main purpose of the visit, the museum, was to be closed for 5 years for renovation. "Sorry." Good brew pubs. If you don't care for gardens or shopping, CC is a little slim on what to do. In 2023, NZ had two of the three worst natural disasters (the CC earthquake was #1) of the last 20 years: Auckland was flooded and cut off from the mainland and there was a tornado that closed the airport for two days. Still, I would move to Queenstown in a heartbeat.
Regarding New Zealand: You might have considered rising from the lap of luxury to walk either the Milford or Routeburn tract. Either guided for visitors commonly stretches to three days, though we were overtaken on a steep hill by two young women, chatting, effortless. (The Routeburn Rage race record for women was three hours, 16 minutes and 48 seconds, for men about 72 minutes faster.
I visited South Island 30 years ago, and loved it. Enjoy your time there.
I was supposed to be on a hovercraft from the south coast of England to Jersey in the Channel Islands, 35 years ago, but underestimated how long it would take to get to the port, and arrived after they had stopped allowing passengers to board. So I drove to the nearest airport (Southampton) and flew instead (not really thinking about how I was going to get my car on the return trip since I would be getting the hovercraft back). I remember, as the nice modern jet took off, noticing a very old looking yellow propeller plane in the same airport and thanked G-d that I was not in one of those. I won't say which airline it was but I notice that they are still around and their jets are actually very nice looking these days.
On the way back, the hovercraft ("wave piercer") left Jersey and it wasn't long before it was bouncing all over the place due to awful sea conditions. After a brave 30 minutes, the captain decided to navigate to the nearest port, on a different channel island (Guernsey), and told us we should wait until things calmed down. I needed to be home that day so I got a taxi to the airport, and went from counter to counter until I found a plane that would take me back. The good news is that this solved the problem of how I would retrieve my car. The bad news is that, as I walked towards the plane, I saw it was an old yellow plane with propellers, just like the one I was glad I didn't fly out on! It actually turned out to be OK. It was quite a lot of fun, sitting next to the pilot. The best part was the James Bond run between planes when we changed planes on a tiny island (Alderney) sticking out of the sea where, when coming in to land, it looked like if you didn't get it exactly right, you would either miss the island completely or crash into the side.
I think my wife has a death wish, she has hiked all over the word and wanted me to accompany her to Nepal. To hike the mountains in Nepal we had to fly from Kathmandu to Luka . We had a group from all over the United States and people from many occupations. My wife and I are pharmacists, but there were two physicians (Father and daughter) and many other occupations represented. One of the occupations was captain of an airliner. When in the plane we could see the cockpit and right out the front window. It was a small twin engine plane. When the plane turned or was under stress you could feel the metal bend. My heart was in my mouth as we left Kathmandu, and when the arrival airport was in sight we didn't start to loose altitude, but we circled the airport while on the ground they were blowing horns or something to chase the cows off the runway. As we were circling the lady that was a captain for a major airline in the United States, said "the runway is not long enough for this plane to land". That wasn't very comforting. As we finally started to descend and circled around to approach the runway it got worse. It appeared that we were headed into the granite of the mountain. Slowly we ascended to the runway which started on the edge of the mountain. What the captain couldn't see from the air was the landing strip was on a hill, and we landed on the lower end, and the plane went up hill as it was stopping. So gravity helped but that plane took ever inch of that runway to stop.... Leaving was like a roller coaster because the plane went down hill gaining speed, and fell off the cliff like a roller coaster until it gained enough speed to gain lift. I'm thankful that I survived that trip, glad I saw the mountains and Everest, but in the future I'll just look at pictures.
Not a plane incident comment, just a thank you for the podcast. We are heading to Christchurch and New Zealand and Australia in another month. Good tidbits on Christchurch and the weather there. You helped our decision making on what to pack! Have an enjoyable trip to Sydney - I lived there many years ago when the Sydney Opera House was just being constructed. They helped fund its construction through a national lottery. All the best to you and your son and thank you for your advocacy work on the consumer's behalf.
Bill
Thanks, Bill. I'm going to do a story on the Opera House while I'm in Sydney. I hope you enjoy your trip to NZ!
I flew on what i would call a puddle jumper from Boston to Augusta, Maine. It was one of those small, regional planes where there is only one seat per side of the aisle and they had to balance out the passenger load. A small curtain left open the entire short flight separated the cockpit from the cabin. We encountered very thick fog which left zero visibilty. As we decended rapidly to land, it felt as if we were plunging straight down to the ground. You saw what the pilots saw - absolutely nothing. I thought we would crash. The next thing to appear in the windshield was the start of the runaway just inches below us. The plane dropped to the tarmac with a huge jolt. I was never so releaved to be down.
My husband and I were in Australia at Cooper Pedi. We were catching a plane to go to the Bungle Bungles. 12 seater, mail plane. we took off and while we were taking off the engine caught fire and he kept on flying. We turned around with flame and smoke pouring out of the engine and on the runway was flashing lights, firetrucks, and people in white hazmat suits. WTH. We thought we were done for. Funny thing is that they had on hand extra engines and just replaced the bad one. Really??? We were stuck there as C.P is in the middle of nowhere so we had to get on that little plane to get out of there.
Had a close call in New Orleans once. We were descending normally, and then all of a sudden we went into a hard climb for a go-around. Found out later there was a small aircraft on the runway.
I don't know that this was actually dangerous but I think a lot of my fellow passengers would have disagreed. Back in the 1970s Eastern had the very popular Eastern Shuttle between DCA and LGA. There was a flight every hour and no reservation was needed -- just show up at the gate and fill out a boarding pass, and pay on the plane. $21 (or $17 student standby with an ID). And if there were more people than seats in the 727, they'd run a second section on an Electra prop jet.
One time in '74 I was on a second section flight to LGA that ran into some really bad thunderstorm activity. That plane bounced around so badly, a lot of people were clearly terrified. And nearly everyone got sick. I may have been the only one (other than the flight crew) who didn't. I have never experienced anything like that since.
Two "non"memorable flights: one into Boston Logan in the middle of a thunderstorm when we hit the water briefly before the landing strip (I saw the water splash up) and the other a scary landing on a flight from Chicago to Bangor Maine in the middle of a blizzard (in the days you could listen into the cockpit). The runway hadn't been plowed and the pilot yelled into the mike for the plows to get moving before we could land. We circled several more times and the plows did come out, but we still skidded to a stop. Said my prayers that night!
I flew Katmandu to Lukla and had the same experience as David Kazarian. I was also on an Air NZ flight from Auckland to LAX. About 3 hours into the flight we were told we had to return to Auckland due to a mechanical problem. After worrying about that as we headed back to Auckland, we found out later that it was a windshield wiper problem.
Several times, once, on a flight from Madrid to Paris...because of snow storm, ( ist time in Nov
at that time) our flight was diverted back to Madrid/ another time, on a flight from NY to somewhere( I forgot)..up on the air, nose blade of the plane was getting loose, we were asked to
brace until we landed, had to remove our shoes,etc. and went down/back to the NY airport safely.
Everytime I fly, I pray before take off, and pray for safety before landing..My favorite saints,:
Sts. Padre Pio and St. Jude..and of course Jesus and Mary!!!! Pray,pray,pray!!!
1970 on a flight to Angkor Wat beginning the descent for landing the sky lit up with what I thought was fireworks. All of the sudden the plane rose at a high speed. We were notified the flight was diverting to Phnom Phenh. After landing we were informed that the bright lights weren't fireworks but artillery. Phnom Phenh was under siege and we spent 3 days locked in our hotel before being returned to Hong Kong. I still haven’t made it to Angkor Wat😔
1991: NW airlines Narita to NY. 45 minutes out they told us there was something wrong with the plane and we had to turn back. There were firetrucks approaching the runway as we landed. We had to go down the chutes from the emergency exits, on the slides. I did not see the fire over the left wing until it was my turn to exit down the chute.
Flying in and out of Aspen Co on commercial flights AND privates! When you leave Denver and the pilot announces there will be no service on the short flight and to stay seated at all times you know you're in for a doozy.
We could see the runway and he overshot it and diverted us to Grand Junction because of winds.
Christchurch--big disappointment in 2023. The cathedral was still under construction, and the main purpose of the visit, the museum, was to be closed for 5 years for renovation. "Sorry." Good brew pubs. If you don't care for gardens or shopping, CC is a little slim on what to do. In 2023, NZ had two of the three worst natural disasters (the CC earthquake was #1) of the last 20 years: Auckland was flooded and cut off from the mainland and there was a tornado that closed the airport for two days. Still, I would move to Queenstown in a heartbeat.
Regarding New Zealand: You might have considered rising from the lap of luxury to walk either the Milford or Routeburn tract. Either guided for visitors commonly stretches to three days, though we were overtaken on a steep hill by two young women, chatting, effortless. (The Routeburn Rage race record for women was three hours, 16 minutes and 48 seconds, for men about 72 minutes faster.
I visited South Island 30 years ago, and loved it. Enjoy your time there.
I was supposed to be on a hovercraft from the south coast of England to Jersey in the Channel Islands, 35 years ago, but underestimated how long it would take to get to the port, and arrived after they had stopped allowing passengers to board. So I drove to the nearest airport (Southampton) and flew instead (not really thinking about how I was going to get my car on the return trip since I would be getting the hovercraft back). I remember, as the nice modern jet took off, noticing a very old looking yellow propeller plane in the same airport and thanked G-d that I was not in one of those. I won't say which airline it was but I notice that they are still around and their jets are actually very nice looking these days.
On the way back, the hovercraft ("wave piercer") left Jersey and it wasn't long before it was bouncing all over the place due to awful sea conditions. After a brave 30 minutes, the captain decided to navigate to the nearest port, on a different channel island (Guernsey), and told us we should wait until things calmed down. I needed to be home that day so I got a taxi to the airport, and went from counter to counter until I found a plane that would take me back. The good news is that this solved the problem of how I would retrieve my car. The bad news is that, as I walked towards the plane, I saw it was an old yellow plane with propellers, just like the one I was glad I didn't fly out on! It actually turned out to be OK. It was quite a lot of fun, sitting next to the pilot. The best part was the James Bond run between planes when we changed planes on a tiny island (Alderney) sticking out of the sea where, when coming in to land, it looked like if you didn't get it exactly right, you would either miss the island completely or crash into the side.
It’s one of my favorite places I’ve traveled too!