Scary experiences
What was your worst?
I have had a few over the last years living in S.E.Asia. One that stands out occured in Indonesia between the small airport of Semarang to Jakarta. I forget the name of the airline but it was one of the smaller regional airlines that operate on the domestic routes.
The aircraft was a brand new ATP. So new that there were British groundcrew working in Jakarta to service and do the turnaround.
I was sitting in an aisle seat late at night and had a clear view through the open cockpit door as we started the take-off roll at Semerang. Half-way down the runway there was a chiming in the cockpit and a large red light lit up on the top of the control panel. The crew aborted the take-off and we returned to the terminal (Sorry I mean small building at edge of the field). After a short discussion in the cockpit, during which time the red light remained on, the cockpit door was closed and we proceeded back to the runway and took off. At this point a few of the passengers who had seen what happened were visibly disturbed.
After take-off the undercarriage was raised and shortly after lowered again. This was repeated about 4 or 5 times during which I lost track of whether they were up or down.(!) There was no announcement from the crew. The cockpit door remained closed and the stewardess remained strapped into her seat.
After what seemed like a long time we started decent into Jakarta and finally were on the final approach. All the passengers were very concerned about what was happening and there was a lot of worried faces and quiet discussion in the cabin. As we decended we all sat quietly and I waited for the undercarriage to be lowered, waited and waited but the familiar whoosh and rumble of the gear going down never came. (It never occured to me that we had flown the whole way from Semerang with the undercarriage down but that was the case.)! As the wheels touched down it was the biggest relief I can remember and was very happy to get off that flight!
I always avoided flying in Indonesia after that!
Anyone got a similar story to relate!