We have a lot of experienced traveles, I would like to hear yor oddest story, adn how you handled the situation?

Mine. On an Aeroflot flight Moscow to LA, my wife and I were seated in the middle three seats in economy. My wife was in the middle seat. Long story short, the Russain guy next to her got really, really drunk, some other Russian guys beat the living daylights out of him during the flight, and the crew shrinked wrapped him to heis seat.

being a 12 hour flight, about 10 hours in, I run into the drunk guy, now sober, at the bathroom. He was black and blue, but walking around like nothing happened.

While exiting the parking garage outside LAX the FBI called me on my cell. The agent told me Aeroflot reported the problem but gave their arrival time as 30 minutes later, to throw off the investigation. The agents arrived after everyone had departed. He said these bust ups happened all the time, and would I give a statement. I was impressed they had my cell number and that they tracked me down so quickly.

never heard what finally happened...

Not nearly as interesting as yours, but....

In 2002 I was leaving the Windhoek, Namibia airport headed to the US via Jo-Berg.

As our we were getting ready to board, it was announced that the flight would be delayed. This seemed odd as we had just watched our baggage being loaded.

The agents at the gate said it would be a short delay.

Then we watched as our baggage was off loaded and placed on the tarmac(!?) We were then told that the flight would be further delayed as a replacement aircraft was being sent from Jo-berg(WTH!). Keep in mind this was not long after 9/11.

Many of us who were headed to the US were going to miss our connecting flight.

Then all of us with connecting flights were instructed to go out and identify our baggage.

We were then told that we would be transferred to another airline so as to not miss our connection.

Then, an announcement was made that the flight would leave as scheduled. We watched our bags being loaded on the plane again.

Several people were getting very antsy about the whole thing, but the gate agents assured us that it was nothing to worry about.

After boarding the plane the pilot informed us that the delay had been caused because one of the baggage trailers had torn a "small" hole in the airplane. They had to wait for the engineers in Jo-berg to decide weather it was safe to fly. And the airplane had been deemed safe.

The only problem was that they would not be able to pressurize the cabin. This would not cause any real issues, except that we would have to fly lower than normal(IIRC <10,000ft) and would need to fly further out over Botswana.

The flight went smooth enough. The one exception was that they had to "drop power" once we got to altitude so that they could calibrate the AC system.

The engines got so quiet that it seemed that they had died. On top of that it felt like we were floating for about 10 seconds.

After that everything was a pretty routine flight.

But with the Post 9/11 tension it was very interesting.

Oddest story? That's easy...Air Zim two or three years ago. About 40 minutes after takeoff the ratty and worn looking cabin fills with smoke. I freak out, unbuckle my seat belt, and start getting out of my seat to run forward in the hope that I can help put out the fire. My wife grabs me and pulls me back into the seat as the flight attendant tells her that "members of the crew had just severely burned a bunch of meals in the oven...no problem".

Another example of good (not necessarily odd) times while traveling was being on a Delta flight landing in the States about five years ago. It was nothing but sleet and wind at this particular airport and the plane was getting bumped around pretty good coming in to land. We got about 20-30 feet of the deck and the wind got worse pushing us sideways perpendicular relative to the runway. The Pilot did the right thing and said "screw it"...punched the throttle... and we took off again without touching ground. About 20 minutes later he comes on the sound system and just says "Uh....ya...That didn't feel right so we are gonna stay up here and circle for a while and try again as soon as we can." We came in again and the wind and rain was just as bad or worse than before but he STUCK that landing. The Pilot stood by the exit and I don't think a single passenger failed to shake his hand and thank him.

A buddy and I flew Bham to Dallas to Albequerqe NM several years ago. We caught a flight on a small two row, 20 er so seat plane to Colorado. We were last to load and sat right behind the Capt and co-pilot, within touching distance and certainly hearing distance. As they were going over the pre-flight checklist the Capt asked how many passengers we had. Co-pilot answered 20..that being the number of seats on the plane. The Capt said"what in the hell?" Little over reaction because no one was sitting on the floor or standing??????

Capt and co-pilot got in a discussion about how much the passengers weighed. Co-pilot said 180 pounds, the Capt figgered on his hand held calculator and said "won't make it!" WTH?? Capt then asked if maybe 170 would be more accurate??? Hell there were folks on there that weighed 275-300 pounds, we were way over any 170 average....

They finally decided to unload the baggage and send it on the next flight. I can tell you I didn't like flying over that really rough northern NM landscape in THAT plane at all. Only good part was our luggage had already been lost at Dallas....

troy

I was awaiting a flight out of Laramie WY back 25 years or so ago. It had snowed heavily the night before but was CAVU this particular morning.

Dang if a bunch of women working for Frontier didn't start going to the bathroom and get surplus green GI "shit cans" (trash cans to civilians) and start filling them up with hot water from the bathroom sink. They then went out to the tarmac and rode up on an accordian-type lift and started pouring the hot water over the snow-covered wings.

They did this for about 10 minutes until dripping water apparently shorted out the controls on the lift, which, lifted.... and impacted the right wing pushing it higher and higher until there was a very loud crack when the main spar gave way.

Evenually when the lift was lowered, the wing then had about 20 degrees of anhedral (droop). I doubt that A/c ever flew again, it being a YS-11 or some such oldie.

Damn stupidest major ground accident I ever saw in 40+ years of flying.

We left the Hot Springs camp in Tajikistan for Khorog then onto Dushanbe in 2008. Our vehicle broke down on this desolate road in the Pamir mountains, with literally nothing in sight.

A little while later, a gold minivan appears from nowhere occupied by two young men. Through our interpreter we learn the men are on their way from China and will drop us off in Khorog. Everyone but the driver of the disabled vehicle climbs into the minivan and off we go to Khorog.

After about 30 minutes, one of the men tell the interpreter they must stop and pick up potatoes. The driver turns off the black top road into this area with bombed out, gutted buildings. My husband whispers to me to "get ready as this is it". My hope was being robbed of our money and passposts and not executed in one of these ruins. We had no firearms as they were seized when we entered the country because of the "Aga Khan's" visit.

After exiting the vehicle,a short time later, here comes one of the men with his Mother carrying potatoes. What a relief!!!

2 stories -

1. Arriving in Atyrau, Kazakstan for the first time, I notice 3 wrecked airliners at the end of the runway. I ask one of my co-workers what is that all about. He says that since the fall of the CIS, the Kazakhs kept all of the Aeroflot's Russian Tupelov's that were in the country. However, they had few pilots. Those planes were the ones the new pilots crashed earlier that year while learning to land. We had a Kazakh pilot.

2. In Lagos, Nigeria while sitting on the tarmac after boarding a BA flight out of that hell hole, I looked out the window to see a couple of baggage handlers rummaging through bags and stealing what they could before loading the bags. One of the guys gets a baubble of some sort, the other guy wants it and a fist fight breaks out. These 2 thieves are wailing on each other when the local cops show up, beat the crap out of both of them and haul them off. The bags stayed on the tarmac for another hour before someone could be persuaded to load them on the plane. All of this in 90 degree heat.

I had to fly to Quetta, Pakistan once and was late arriving into Karachi and missed my connection. I booked myself a hotel room and stayed the night. The room had no air conditioning and was hot as hell so I opened up the windows, sat on the windowsill and smoked a cigar. While I'm sitting there a van parked on the next block explodes (car bomb) and destroys the store fronts on the block.

I spent the rest of the night back in the room behind the dresser with the matress propped in front of me listening to automatic gunfire and sirens.

I was flying back to the states from Auckland New Zealand, just finished a
very succesful red stag hunt. My wife & I were standing around the terminal
waiting when they called my name on the overhead to come to the desk. When I
walked up there were a bunch of para-military guys with semi-auto's, shaved heads
(probably looked like the crew that took out Osama!). Anyway they said
when xraying my gun case they saw two guns & I only had a permit for one. They
actually showed me the XRAY which showed my double rifle. I tried to explain to
them about two barrels, two triggers (like a double barreled shotgun) but they
weren't convinced. Finally, I had my wife bring over my digital camera with pics
of my Red Stag & the double rifle. The head guy who was interogating me
said "what a corker!" & proceeded to show his team the pics. We then spent
the next 30 minutes talking about hunting, guns, the US,... They were actually
a really nice group of guys.

quote:

Originally posted by DTala:
A buddy and I flew Bham to Dallas to Albequerqe NM several years ago. We caught a flight on a small two row, 20 er so seat plane to Colorado. We were last to load and sat right behind the Capt and co-pilot, within touching distance and certainly hearing distance. As they were going over the pre-flight checklist the Capt asked how many passengers we had. Co-pilot answered 20..that being the number of seats on the plane. The Capt said"what in the hell?" Little over reaction because no one was sitting on the floor or standing??????

Capt and co-pilot got in a discussion about how much the passengers weighed. Co-pilot said 180 pounds, the Capt figgered on his hand held calculator and said "won't make it!" WTH?? Capt then asked if maybe 170 would be more accurate??? Hell there were folks on there that weighed 275-300 pounds, we were way over any 170 average....

They finally decided to unload the baggage and send it on the next flight. I can tell you I didn't like flying over that really rough northern NM landscape in THAT plane at all. Only good part was our luggage had already been lost at Dallas....

troy

You're just lucky you didn't lose an engine enroute, baggage or no baggage. Toast.

While en route from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to the Tien Shan Mountains for Marco Polo and Ibex our vehicles broke down two or three times, making it too late to get to camp. We had just passed a border control point (The road passes in and out of China at a couple of locations.) There was a small army installation nearby so we stopped there. An officer assisted us in going to the home of a family who took us in for the night. It was the only dwelling for many miles, located far out on the steppe. Mother, father and the two small boys emptied their bedroom for us, fed us a delightful dinner and did their best to make us comfortable. They spoke only Kyrgyz, but we had an intreter of sorts. There are fine people all over the world, and Kathi is right. Staying home is like reading only one page of a book. Of course we gave them a goodly sum of USD's, not so much as payment, but as a gift of thanks for their generosity. I hope it was helpful.

When you fly from Falkland Islands to Santiago, Chile you have to land in Punta Arenas for an hour or so. I'm pretty sure you even get back on the same plane. Anyway, I was sound asleep and the plane started to land with a 60 mph crosswind. The pilot pulled up at the last minute and circled around and tried to land again. Pulled up at the last minute again. Third time they gave us a different runway. I woke up to very loud cheering and clapping and was very happy to have missed it all. My friends said it was very, very scary and it was the worst thing to happen to them and many of them fly a lot. One guy was taken to the hospital with a heart attack.

Forgot this one....

I was on a domestic US flight after coming back from a safari. Guy sits next to me and, before the doors are even closed, tells an attendant he would like a double scotch. He downs what actually looked like a triple shot in one gulp and orders another which she actually brings while trying to do all her other pre-flight stuff. I look at the guy as he downs his second double in 2 minutes and say "Wow, you get pretty good service...how do you rate?"

The not so comforting response was...."Oh, I am a pilot for this airline".

I was at Jan Smuts airport in 1992 after a great hunt in SA.
At the check-in we got in contact with the guy behind the desk.
Due to the gun cases he started to ask about the hunt.
After a while he asked if we wanted to see his gun?
Sure, and off he went. After 2-3 minutes he came back bringing his briefcase.
Inside it was a scoped Ruger Redhawk. I asked for a look, and picked up the handgun.
Big was my suprise checking it and there was 5 hydrashocks in the cylinder!
He replied that it was always loaded, and used for self defense and Kudu.
Still I'm glad I had seven witnesses that can confirm the story.

Just try to image this happening in 2011...

i wne t to see some customers in Bogota colombia, we sell them passenger buses. So the night before the departure (6am ) we go out and get pretty drunk (ok really really drunk), so I board the avianca flight to head back to mexico city almost missing it.......

About 7 hours into the four hour flight, the flight attendant gets on the PA and wakes me up with "ladies and gents please straighten your seat belt and get rady to land at EL DORADO airport"..... Im thinking WTF, this has to be a joke.... So I try to ask everyone around me what was going on, and noone spoke english or spanish, so at this point Im really confused/hung over..... the crew comes on the PA a couple of times more insisting we are almost to EL DORADo......

At this point I still think they are joking, when out of the window, as we break through the clouds I can see we are clearly not landing in mexico city..... anyway I thought the flight had been kidnapped or something like that...

Finally we get on the ground and they tell us that a gps sistem had malfunctioned 30 minutes from mexico city and that they had decided to turn back since their service facilities were in bogota.... they told us to please wait and that it would only be 4-6 hours while they fixed it, they let us off the flight and I imediatly changed my flight for another day, I got my luggage back and instead stayed for another week in Bogota...

Patricio

Your story reminds me of a well known movie, where a fellow drinks a bit too much, ends up on an airplane, then a taxi, says his home address and is delivered to a womans apartment in another city (who happens to have the same street address), on New Years Eve- comedy follows, they fall in love and get married.

So what kept you an extra week in Bogota?

I too have been a day late and a dollar short, briefly:

I arrived at check in for an international flight, bags in tow, but an entire day early...

On another trip, I left Prague and connected at DeGaulle, while boarding to the flight to the US, the agent discovered I had traveled a day early, and said I would have to wait until tomorrow to continue my flight. I made it home that same day after some negotiating, but was amazed I mixed up my travel by a day and that no one at Prague check in noticed.

In 1989 my dad and I were headed to Namibia on our first safari. Not long before we left, a family friend whom had hunted East Africa many times in the 50's passed away. His family asked my father to spread some of his ashes in Africa, as this would be what he would want. I only being a teenager never gave it much thought and had forgot about it. Once we were in JFK airport checking in, a security officer was going through dads carry on bag. Dad had dumped some of the ashes in a envelope. This young officer really must have thought he had found some contraband. Before we could expain 2 or 3 guys had ashes in their fingers and all over the place trying to figure out what they discoverd. Once dad explained the situation, you would not believe the look on their faces. It was all I could do not to laugh. The other officers not involved had quite laugh also.

404, I have many friends in Bogota from when I used to live in miami, so I just decided to stay another week, it was good times......

Had another similar thing happen.... Friend of mine lived at turnberry Isle in miami, so I met him out after arriving in miami, and put my stuff in his car, we went out and had a few drinks (a lot) and he left with some girl, I was with the frien so i told him I would just meet him back at his apartment.....

Long story short I got back to the apartment about 7am, no sleep, no battery in the phone only to have the front desk lady tell me again and again that the person I was looking for did not live in the apartment I was giving her.... in my still inhebriated state I told her FINE I WILL SLEEP IN THE LOBY UNTILL MY FRIEN COMES DOWN......

After a few minutes of sleeping on the couches the cops showed up.... turns out there are 8 diferent TURNBERRY (i forgot the isle part) buildings in miami and I was at the wrong one, cop was nice about it and after a laugh offered to give me a ride, so acording to "procedure " he had to put me in cuffs to drive me over to my friends appartment....

Now imagine me getting out of a cop car, and the cop unlocking the handcuffs in the lobby of a really nice building in Miami, as my friends parents and their friends are walking out to go to brunch

Many years ago I was taking a commercial flight out of Panama City, FL. Taxi out two F4 phantoms got in line just ahead of us with several commercial flights ahead of them. Each airplane had to make a 90 degree hard left onto the runway. When the F4s got their turn, 1 took 1 side of the runway and 1 took the other side. Together they took off with full afterburners with us still side ways to them. Those afterburners shook our plane so hard I wondered if it was even safe to try a take-off without a returning for a full maintenance inspection!

quote:

The only problem was that they would not be able to pressurize the cabin. This would not cause any real issues, except that we would have to fly lower than normal(IIRC <10,000ft) and would need to fly further out over Botswana.

Jason,

Are you saying that you flew from Namibia to the USA at below 10,000 feet? Surely I misunderstood that as it would be impossible.

I was headed to a fishing trip in Mexico and I had a group of about 12 guys with me. We had flown out of San Antonio on an Mexican air line, not sure if if was Mexicana or one of the otheres,,, this was about 10 years ago. We were headed to Los Mochis and had a stop in Chihuahua. We were on one of those planes that looks like a cigar, turbo prop with one seat on each side and you can not stand up in it. We were trying to land with a terrible cross wind,,, the pilots looked like they were 12 years old. On the landing there was a herd of goats beside the runway, the cross wind blew us off the runway, the pilots hit the power and we cliped a few goats as we made another pass. The second attempt wasn't much better but we did stay on the runway, at times I could see the runway as almost a 45 degree from my seat!. We deplaned and it wasn't until then that we found out the front landing gear was damaged when they hit the goats. We watched them jack the plane up,,, take of the gear and put a replacement on it. We had to get back on to the same plane. Several of the guys were like "No Way In Hell" am I getting back on to that plane. The problem is the only other way out was by bus,,,,after several rounds of drinks I got everyone at the boarding gate, we did get a new pilot,, about 21 year old Mexican girl that was model georgious,,, rayban glasses ,,starched white shirt ,long jet black hair, blue jacket with pilot stripes, and the tightest skirt you can imagine. Those guys followed her straight to the plane like bees to honey,,,,The fishing was great as well when we finally got there...There was some arguement as to who got the dead goats and who paid for them...

After years of saving I was finally on my way to Alaska for the first time and first big gmae hunting trip. I requested a window seat and settled in for the long flight.

Not long into the flight the pilot announced that the inflight movie was not working. Also the cloud cover was so terrible you couldn't see a thing until we landed in Anchorage. (Anchorage had a huge thunderstorm roll in and the mountains ouside of town had their first snowfall of the year). With nothing else to do I started to fall asleep and I could swear someone was looking at me. One of the three young children behind me was peering over the top of me seat. Later into the flight I was awoken by one of the children kicking my seat. To add insult to injury they mistakenly loaded the wrong meals on the flight. We ended up with burritos. Oh yeah...I spilled my beer with dinner.

The flight back was just as bad. Took the red eye which was overbooked and left late. One of the last people to get on the flight was a large women and her son. This time the inflight movie worked but was just interested in getting some sleep and home. My connecting flight had be sitting along side the same large women who also boarded the connecting flight at the last possible moment. Let say she was so large I basically conldn't use my left arm.

The two positives from the trip. I had a great time in Alaska and took a nice Caribou and the same airline with help of the Dutch Goverment suppiled my soldier and myself with beer on our return flight from Iraq.

About 20 years ago I was in Venezuela on holidays and we would travel back and forth from Caracas to Marguerite Island. We had probably flowm on this flight half a dozen times and it took approx. 35 minutes.Just before departure this good looking lady of the evening boards the airplane. After about 15 minutes in the air she gets up and goes to the cockpit. One hour later she comes out of the cockpit with a really sheepish smile on her face. The plane then takes a hard right and drops umpteen thousand feet in a hurry, another hard right and we are on the runway safe and sound. I turn and look at my buddy (who hates flying) and he is white as a ghost and vibrating like a chicken that just got it's head chopped off. I'm sure at least one pilot joined the mile high club. A service only supplied on Venezuela's national airline I'm sure!

Well I can have a good crack at this one.

Will not describe in to much detail but you will get the point.

1. At 18, 3 month after getting my gun permit I was of to New Zealand.
Got stuck in South Island due to bad weather.
Went to the only place to eat and tried to get dragged home by a 45 year old lady?
9 of 10 day hunt spent in tent due to rain.
Chopper fee and all what a way to start over sea's hunting when you are not rich.

2. Being in a plane crash in Canada.
Stuck in a snow storm with a dead pilot.
Guarding from bear but not able to shot as in the NWT. 6 waring shots during the night.
Horrested by air safety canada not allowed to fly home and out of money. Slept in a shed with iron banging on the roof all night, that much I had to wear ear plugs just to fall a sleep in -20.
They would not pay for any thing for me, what should a 21 year old do?
To get them back I asked could I drive to the air port as we were all in a chev bus thing. At the first car I swerved to the wrong side of the road. Said sorry it was the Aussie coming out in me. We do not drive on this side of road.
Watch out for super cubs.

3. Russia
Held at customs with a gun at my head for a bribe. 1/2 day
Being shot at on the boarder.
Pass port taken at area control.
Offer to fly and shoot a hellicopter gun ship for $.
Broken down jeep in -25 with now idea from the drive how to fix.
Lucky I did.

4. One for Brice.
Delay of of 36 hrs getting from Turkey to Bishkek in Kyrgzstan at air port.
Flying over Bishkek air port watching them melt snow of the run way with LPG heater and no fuel left on the plane.
Nearly go stabbed ( my shirt was cut) ( do not wear western clothing)in the local markets, asked did I want justus, the guards nearly beat him to death.
Drunk PH on the way to hunting area and had to drive for fear of my life. Never driven on snow or ice and no chains. He went to sleep, lucky only 1 road so no way to get lost.
Was told I would not need to ride a horse, guide left me and a wolf came along and I got bucket of my horse. Lucky it was all down hill. Guide came back 2 hrs latter with a sh_t scared look on his face???


5. Africa
Getting a call from air line to say flight time had changed by 2 hrs. Early, we had a 2 hr drive. Tossed all the gear in and fled for air port. Did not make it so camped at hotel.
Went to catch flight next morning and got crap over my 35mm camera. Had to pull it apart and get inspected by at least 3 air port managers.

Hand luggage went through xray.
Got on plane and 35 rounds of ammo in carry on case????

6. Africa
Picked up by Guide (not PH) got drunk after 20hrs of flying ( very bad) at pub asked him to go home, get in car he backed into another car and we leave the sean with 20 blacks chasing us.

The car is a new BMW.

Drive 15km and he say's I am to drunk to drive and jumps in the back seat and falls a sleep.
I think holy sh_t, in a back road of africa in a BMW.

Some people come along and I think I need to get out of here, jump in driver seat and head off.

Type in home in GPS and 3 locations come up.

First one turn out to be mothers place.
2nd one girl friends house.
3rd one his home with wife.
Get in at 2 in the morning and wife comes running out in tears. Where have you bean? I said he fell over and hit is head!!! (girl friend??) And the basted did not send my KUDU.

Any way enough for now.

Loved it and would do it all again.
Have hunted with the best and some times sh_t happens.

Hope you get a laugh.

Regards Mark

WOW!

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:

quote:

The only problem was that they would not be able to pressurize the cabin. This would not cause any real issues, except that we would have to fly lower than normal(IIRC <10,000ft) and would need to fly further out over Botswana.

Jason,

Are you saying that you flew from Namibia to the USA at below 10,000 feet? Surely I misunderstood that as it would be impossible.

Surestrike
You missed this part:

quote:

In 2002 I was leaving the Windhoek, Namibia airport headed to the US via Jo-Berg.

It was Windhoek-Joberg-Atlanta.

A guy I knew coming back from NZ with a Deer cape and Antlers.

Dump them on the check in to be weighed, I gather the lady airline
employee looked at it funny and when queried, said "I am a Vegitarian"
to which my friend said "so was the deer".

.

In January 1974 I was a young Captain in the US Army shooting for the All Army Rifle Team and we flew our own C130 from the US to Roosevelt Roads Naval air Station in Puerto Rico to shoot in a big rifle match in Salinas, P.R. When we got to Roosevelt Roads, a young Navy ensign came into our plane to give us a briefing about the terrorist threat down there from the FALN. Now our plane was full of Match M-14's and about 10,000 rounds of Lake City Match ammo, and we were the best long range rifle shots in the world. When we told the young ensign who we were and showed him all our weapons and ammo, he said we could probably solve all the problems with the FALN on our own. On the way home, we had shot up all our ammo, but filled the plane with duty free liquor. Back then, Bacardi rum and premium gin was about a dollar a fifth. I filled two barracks bags full of booze for about $20.