Did quite a bit of flying on Ariana during my time there, and let me tell you - it was scary. One morning they were taxiing out with pax onboard and clipped the terminal building with the wingtip of the 727, effectively creating a nice blended winglet.
No worries, they offloaded, pulled the aircraft around the corner, and proced to beat the offending winglet into submission with hammers and things, before reloading the pax, and blasting off into the great blue yonder.
Then there was the day I caught the flight to Dubai. Was reading a book in flight when I noticed that there was a horrible little vibration creeping in. From my feet, all the way to my book, a nice rythmic vibration was pulsing through the aircraft. When I looked out along the wing, I could see the left hand aileron was fluttering about 20cm at a very high frequency.
Having been part of their power on descents before I realised it would be a good idea to inform the skipper, so as to fly a reduced speed decent. Getting no joy from the cabin crew, I clawed on for dear life as the aircraft started a high speed decent, making the vibration increase tenfold.
On deplaning, I found the skipper in the galley, a chap I had met before on the apron in Kabul. I asked him if he detected the vibration, which he said he did, but had no idea as to the source. I informed him of the aileron flutter, for which he was extremely thankful.
He said," We will have them look at it when we get back to Kabul". A mate who took the return flight, said it was done at full speed again, the vibration so bad that the entire wingtip became a blur in the descent....