Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire That once in a lifetime experience?

Have you ever had an experience that will likely be once in a lifetime? Not a Yukon hunt or bucket list event - I mean something that was a total surprise that will likely never happen again in your life.

Here's one of mine:

About 6 years ago, the family and I boarded a flight from Orlando to Denver and 10 minutes in, while still climbing to altitude, the plane made a steep and abrupt bank to the South. We were no longer going to Denver. I scanned the cabin in front of me, looking for any sign of Muzzies or other nefarious characters. I saw nothing and leaned over to my wife and quietly said, "We're not going to Denver anymore". A few minutes later, the captain comes on the intercom and informs us we are diverting to Tampa/St Pete due to a warning light, but assures us everything is okay. We immediately begin to descend and we can smell smoke. The cabin lights start to flicker on and off - which added to our level of concern. after what seemed like an eternity, but was likely only 15-20 minutes we came in and landed, hard and HEAVY, at the Tampa airport, with all the passengers in crash positions. The plane rolled to a stop and everybody clapped. The captain came back on the intercom and said to stay in our seats and to not be concerned about all the firetrucks surrounding the plane (yeah - right). We sat there for about 4-5 minutes and then captain came back on again one last time and announced an immediate evacuation. The crew opened the doors and popped the slides. My boys tried to grab their backpacks and I told them to leave their chit and let's go. We headed up the aisle to the front slide and my family were the last passengers off the plane (we were dead center in the middle of the aircraft) and the crew came down after us.

The crew gathered the passengers and moved us a safe distance away from the plane. That was when I snapped this picture:



I talked with one of the flight attendants later at the terminal and asked her if she had ever had to pop the slides before - "Not in my 19 years flying", she said, "Only in training".

cool. glad it ended well.

Kids will have stories to tell at school now

Glad things turned out well with that.

Once is all you need of an experience like that... (and preferably never.)

I thought of this today, on Easter Sunday, because an event like this can make you think about where you are with the Lord. Not a "Lord Save me and I'll follow you", but more of a "Would I be right with the Lord if it had ended that day?".

Perspective.

Had one of those 'unscheduled' stops on a plane years ago. I forget even where I was going but we got suddenly diverted to Atlanta where we parked wayyy out on the runway and 'deplaned'....waiting at the bottom of the exit stairs for most of us was one or more cops. My two each grabbed an arm and gave the cryptic order " Run..."

" So whats going on?" I had to ask...


Not surpringly they answered " ohhhh....nothing..."

While working in Albuquerque. Sandia labs use to charter a plane to fly us to the Nevada Test Site. It was an old F27 Fairchild. About half way there, one of the windshields popped out. Luckily we were onlyat15K feet at most.

Then the same year, same charter company, only about ten of us had to go out between Christmas and New Years. They flew us out in ten passenger Queen Air Cessna.

As we were about to land at Desert Rock ( NTS air strip).The tower announced they didn't see wheels sticking out of the bottom of the plane. The was no cock pit, so we could hear the pilot say ,the light says they are down. So we circled over restricted air space, dumping fuel, while the copilot manually pumped the gear down and cautioned us that they didn't know if the gear was locked. We passed over the paved landing strip and landed on the graded sand past it with an all terrain fire trucks one each side of us.

That same plane crashed on take off at Kirtland AFB heading towards Los Alamos, killing all on board.

WyColoCowboy,

It sounds like your Southwest crew was a good one, and they handled the situation well.

In events like this, there is always one passenger who will make a big fuss because they are now going to miss a meeting or are delayed getting home to watch a football game.

Instead they should seriously thank the Lord and the crew that they are on the ground and safe in one piece.

Making a 150,000 lb. tube full of people fly thousands of feet into the air and go 500 miles per hour is extremely complicated and inherently very dangerous if anything goes wrong.

Mechanical, electrical, and electronic things can and do fail frequently. It is amazing that so many people take flying as a passenger so for granted. That they do is actually a huge credit to well trained crew-members and mechanics that deal with these sorts of situations everyday, somewhere in the country.

Happy Easter, and count your blessings, everyone.

Not that scary, but back in '70 when I finished AIT at Ft Leonard Wood, I was heading home, flying standby. I got a flight on Hughes Airwest (owned by Howard Hughes and long since out of business). Their planes were less than ideal. Between Vegas and Salt Lake, I was seated next to an Air Force Sgt. We were watching the panels on the wings bang up and down due to the loose rivets that were supposed to hold them together. There were lots of other strange, unnatural noises, too. The Sgt just looked out the window and said 'We use better planes than this for targets'.

RC. Sandia started chartering Hughes Air West after the Ross Aviation fiasco. They were a little bit better, and they were 727's. The crew was great, and they plied us with a lot of booze to keep us happy so we didn't notice the defects.

The experience that totally changed my life and absolutely will not happen again was the birth of our first child.

Tom aka rinkydink

The way the Obama administration has excelled I was thinking that America's first black president will be the last black president in my lifetime.

I just recently related this story to Ron T regarding one of my dad's experiences from WWII. Dad drew a coveted weekend pass and needed a ride back off the front. He was dug in on an emergency airstrip that damaged bombers flew into when they couldn't make it back to their bases. He hitched a ride back on a patched up B-17 that had been shot up on a bombing raid. A few rudimentary repairs, just to get it back to the rear, and it was deemed "airworthy". The going rate was a Luger and a bottle of booze, both of which Dad had. They put him amidships near the waist guns and told him if anything flew near them, it was Axis and to shoot it, as the Allied aircraft steered clear of these crippled Forts because they apparently had a penchant for exploding in mid-air. Dad noticed that there was a skeleton crew on board. Same reason.

They were up in the air about 20 minutes when things starting going wrong. Dad said the whole plane reeked of gas. Every line that held a petroleum product was leaking. He said he could see daylight through the sides where the plane had taken multiple hits. The top turret gunner had been killed in the battle it last flew, and the turret was all busted up.

One engine went out, and soon another. They found a pasture to put the plane down in, and did a successful belly landing. The MP's and recovery units started showing up. Dad's on a weekend pass, and now over 100 miles from his unit, with no transportation. In the commotion of everyone fussing over the plane, he stole an MP's motorcycle and headed back for his unit, dodging patrols now looking for the missing bike. He got as close to his unit as he dared, dumped the bike in a pond, and walked into his unit with about 20 minutes to spare. Luckily, because it was an "off the books" ride, the pilot didn't even have his name to give the MP's. He never got busted for it and figures that bike is still in that pond to this day.

I only ever had one rough flight. It was from Pittsburgh into Minneapolis. They came around and picked up the drinks, and the seat belt light went on as the pilot told us to prepare for some turbulence. It got a little sporty, but nothing close to the flight related by the OP.

In our squadron in Vietnam, you never knew when your last mission of the tour might be, schedulers kept it secret , you found out when you stepped off the aircraft to be greeted with fire hoses. Here's mine, April of 1969, truly a surprise and a once in a lifetime experience. Guess you can tell I was a little happy.

Mine involves a 39 year old woman and her 19 year old daughter. That one will never happen again.

What a great shot. Thank you for your service.

I took of from Kobe Japan in route to Okinawa 20 minutes before a 7.0 earthquake struck the city and killed 6500 people.

First time I got laid. Totally surprised me!

You went on a date and the daughter babysat the dogs?