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Any Travel Horror Stories?
I was boarding a flight in Oklahoma City last week and they scanned my carry on bag and asked me to step over while they checked it. Said their scan showed a .22 caliber bullet in the bag and behold.....they were right. I thought I was going to get really hassled about it but they just told me they had to "dispose of it for me". I guess at some point I had taken it the my gun club and the bullet got left in the bag. May 18 17 01:39 pm Link If that .22 had been found during international travel, you could have had a serious problem. May 18 17 01:50 pm Link Hunter GWPB wrote: I thought I was going to have a problem as it was. Long questions and reports to make. May 18 17 02:05 pm Link I was thinking; "is this guy SOOOO attached to his freakin guns he needs to take a bullet with him like a souvenir?!!" May 18 17 02:19 pm Link I've got so many metal parts in me, that even with my clear card, my CBP designation, and a handful of "yes, I've had that replaced" cards, every time through the airport is an adventure . . . I guess that's jest what ya havta live with when your x-ray image looks like ya have a lawnmower hidden inside ya . . .  SOS May 18 17 02:47 pm Link On our second or third anniversary, my wife had an audition scheduled with the Tacoma Symphony. We were nearly broke at the time and couldn't afford a plane ticket, so we decided to drive over, about a five hour trip. Our car was used, and we had just purchased it a couple of weeks earlier. We had made it most of the way just fine, but coming up the hill from Auburn to Federal way, our car broke down. We waited at least an hour and a half before anyone stopped to help. We finally got someone to call a tow truck, and haul the car to the nearest Autozone. I ended up having to replace the alternator with just a screwdriver and a pair of channel lock pliers. My wife missed her audition, so we just decided to get some dinner. We had a certain restaurant in mind, but we got lost trying to find it. We drove in circles for an hour or so, before we finally found it. We then decided to drive up to Bremerton, take the ferry back over to Seattle, and then find a hotel. We made a wrong turn and ended up at a different ferry terminal and got on a ferry which dropped us off in a part of Seattle that we were not familiar with. Starting in south Seattle, we ended up driving to north Seattle before we found our way to I-5. We started looking for a hotel, but they were all full. We got back on the freeway, checking every hotel that we found. We finally found a hotel down in Kent with a room available. We hadn't planned on staying overnight, so we did not have a change of clothes or any toiletries with us. We spent the night, and headed back to Spokane the next morning. Needless to say, we were glad to get home. These kinds of things seem to happen to my wife an I on a fairly regular basis. May 20 17 07:35 am Link Chasing gate changes back and forth across miles of airport concourses, dragging luggage behind me. Getting caught in a blizzard driving across one of the Great Plains states that goes for about three thousand miles. Airplane stuck on tarmac, inadequate ventilation, for a couple hours. Airline cancels flight after my bag is checked, it's not their "fault" so they're not paying for overnight costs, all hotels booked up, sleep in airport, wake up not liking how I felt or smelt. LAX. That's all I need to say. Airline actually shuts down operations with the plane's passengers standing in line. Other airlines pick up the slack, bless them, and I'm in a row with the Simpsons Family Gone to Hell. Flight attendant spills coffee on the front of my jeans. Ouch. She's horrified, grabs a towel to start mopping it up, but turns out to be too embarrassed to attack my crotch. Offers a dry cleaning voucher. No thanks, they're just jeans. I figure this will at least get me a little nicer attention, but then the passenger in the row ahead forestalls that my rudely having a medical emergency. Flight attendant is giving him oxygen, saying soothing things. We land and all stay on the plane while the EMTs board and then whisk the guy away. (Come to think of it, that flight attendant had a worse day than I did.) Getting shaken down at a third-world airport. I have not been physically accosted by airline security personnel or anyone else. All part of the fun. I still like to travel. May 21 17 09:45 am Link Was not personally and thoroughly searched by a really cute TSA agent. Ever. It happens every time I travel, and it annoys me, every time. May 21 17 10:41 am Link Enter the airport in Palm Springs. Linger by the Cranberries is playing. I hate that song. Stop in Salt Lake City to tranfer to Seattle. Linger by the Cranberries is playing. I hate that song. Get off the plane in Seattle. Linger by the Cranberries is playing. I hate that song. I cringe even remembering it. May 21 17 11:03 am Link Justin wrote: That's happened to us. Our plan landed late in SLC, and our next flight was supposed to be just a couple of gates down. We got off the plane, and then were told that our next flight would be leaving from a gate at the other end of the airport. We got down there, and were told that we were misinformed, and our flight would be leaving from the gate right next to where we arrived, and it would be leaving in five minutes, so we had to sprint back to the other end of the airport. May 21 17 11:13 am Link Hunter GWPB wrote: Wait...what??! How do you figure?? May 21 17 11:36 am Link not a horror story, but funny non: Itinerary: Corpus Christi to Las Vegas. Switch planes in Phoenix. I get off plane in PHX. Amazingly, the boarding pass shows that the gate I'm supposed to go to is RIGHT NEXT to where I just got off. I was astonished and amazed! This NEVER happens to me. I always have to schlep all the way across an airport to get to my connection. I get to the gate. A sign is posted that there was a change and I have to go all the way to the opposite side of the terminal... just like always! After the long 20+ minute walk to my destination I strike up a conversation with another passenger and tell him of my woes and how it always seems to happen to me. He starts laughing and says "I got off at the gate right next to this one, went all the way to the other side of the terminal to catch the connecting plane, just to get there and find that I had to come all the way back here". May 21 17 11:37 am Link My last trip coming home from Columbus. 45 min connection in Atlanta. No gate info given on board before landing. Went to search for a monitor ended up asking a gate agent. She told me the gate which was in a different concourse all the way at the end, and I had arrived on a gate at the end of the current concourse. Get to the gate and they are paging last call for me. Hand them my boarding pass and they quickly switch it and hand it back to me which showed a seat change. Sit down in the seat and a flight attendant comes talking to the two women next to me and then goes away,coming back and handing the girl next to me a little plastic bag full of something. The minute we started taxiing to the runway, the girl starts throwing up and that continues for 5 hours until we park at the gate in Seattle. No spare seats on the aircraft to switch to, I was wishing I had taken a little longer to get to the gate. A nice email to Delta on my return resulted in an apology and 5000 sky miles. Tried taking it further with a contact I had at DL but just got another apology May 21 17 02:00 pm Link Eros Fine Art Photo wrote: It doesn't matter if it is harmless, it is still ammunition. It is a serious problem to illegally import (or possess) ammo into some countries. May 21 17 02:03 pm Link Only in Texas have I seen a "no guns" sign on airport entrance doors depicted with the image of a gun with a line thru it. Once I was landing in Holland after a long, non-stop flight. Someone was crouched down in front of me at the baggage carousel who suddenly stood up and bumped me. yea, wallet was gone and I didn't notice until 20 minutes later. Thankfully cautionary tales of sticky fingers had prompted me to plant a fake wallet in my back pocket with some somewhat realistic looking bills and credit cards. I just wish I was around to watch the a-hole try to spend that $1,000,000 bill. The credit cards were equally as useless. Another time I was watching my suitcase arrive off a conveyor belt in The Dominican Republic. I had put a bright yellow tag on it with a black letter "K" and some unusual phrase which was unlikely to be duplicated. A woman casually grabbed my suitcase and stood next to it. No big deal. Once she double-checked the tag I'm sure she would put it back on the belt. no? After a few moments I realized what was going on, walked over to MY suitcase with MY name on it and moved it a few inches away from her and more towards me. She didn't protest. In fact, it was the bus driver who spotted ME grabbing the suitcase and asked ME to see the claim ticket. Then, there's the weird stuff. Arriving in Tokyo, I turned the corner to see a set of turnstiles, floor covered with sticky pads which made a suction noise as I walked over them, with a man in white surgical gloves and a mask waiting for me on the other side. There was no other exit. And, the fun stuff. Arriving by train to Kennedy Airport I was trying to wrestle my suitcase through all the people on the train and out the exit. I had turned my back for just a second to navigate the suitcase when someone had pushed their way onto the train before everyone else had exited the car... like me. I turned back around and tackled him like a rag doll  I should feel bad about knocking all the wind out of him but I don't.May 21 17 04:56 pm Link The fun of flying ... - Years ago on a DC6 military nighttime flight, there were flames coming out of the rear of the engines. Not reassuring. - On returning to O'Hare from Logan coming out of the clouds over Lake Michigan, there was another jet about 200 meters off the starboard side. Both planes banked to increase the separation. - On a hot afternoon taking off from Albuquerque, the plane came close to stalling. - On returning from Paris on an Air Chance 747, the pilot landed so hard I thought the landing gear would break. Harder than coming down in Nam in a Huey without power that bent the skids. - Flying to one of the out islands in the Bahamas in a small Cessna, hit a downdraft and the plane dropped 300 meters before the pilot regained control. We were around 3K meters. More excitement coming home when the pond hopping regional airline I was to fly home on was out of business. May 21 17 09:50 pm Link Flying in a Cessna SkyHawk presented the most terrifying situations. With my buddy piloting, we left Bridgeport airport in a rain storm. The airport is a bit tricky for take-off and landings, surrounded by hills. My pilot switched to GPS navigation shortly after take-off without following the recommended flight pattern. The control tower advised us we were not following the departure plan as we left IFR, switched to GPS, and headed into the hills. Then the radio went quiet as the tower braced for the worst. In the inky black night we never knew how close we came to buzzing the tree tops. another time, dozens of small planes flew into an airport for an air show. At the conclusion we lined up on the small runway to take-off. Then the wind changed from a head wind to a tail wind. This has the effect of decreasing air speed from +10 knots to -10 knots. We took the entire length of the runway for our wheels to leave the runway. One plane behind us did not gain altitude in time, crashed killing all on board. Even under the best of conditions things can get a bit scary. Approach to Islip Airport is handled by a radar station miles away. Sometimes they get a bit overloaded and hand off half a dozen aircraft to Islip Tower to sequence properly. The tower has a standing rule that they will not interrupt the landing sequence once it has begun. I was in a 4-seat Cessna and was sequenced directly in front of the path of a fairly large jet traveling at 4x my speed. At 1000 feet, I turned my head to see a looming headlight fast approaching out of the sky. The Captain of the jet told the tower, "I don't know what to do." ! The tower advised the jet to make S-Turns to slow their approach - advise which was not very practical. I touched the throttle to drop my flaps and slow to land when the tower barked at me, "No Delay! No Delay!" Thankfully my instructor was flying with me, took control of the plane, did a forward slip landing to literally fall out of the sky and got us off onto a taxiway faster than I thought possible. But, the jet was forced to veer off to avoid squashing us like a bug. May 22 17 05:14 am Link Took a plane to Bangkok, Thailand. Checks in hotel. Decided to pay for hotel with credit card. That was when I discovered that I did not activate overseas transaction for my credit card. Geylang Serai Ramadan Bazaar 2017 May 23 17 04:42 am Link rxz wrote: how on earth could you, as a passenger, know this? I've never seen angle of attack instruments on the back of seats. So tell us please how could you know that the plane was close to stalling? The aviation community awaits your answer. May 26 17 02:45 pm Link Perhaps it was a small plane and he was not in a rear seat? Perhaps he was in a small plane or military aircraft and was able to hear the pilot exclaim, "Holy shit we almost stalled!" May 26 17 03:04 pm Link Get off the plane at the little airport in Iquitos, Peru. Go in the terminal and wait for the bags. Here they come... they're piled on a cart. Someone takes the cart to the middle of the room and they toss them all into a pile on the floor... then everyone climbs over each other and the pile looking for their bag. Get off the plane at the one runway "airport" in Djanet, Algera. Interesting looking place... no real terminal... just a gun tower. Worth a quick picture, so lets pull out the pocket camera real quick. In an instant two guards approach and point machine guns at my head. Perhaps I'll just put that camera back into my backpack., Zambia, back at the capitol after the first week at one lodge, looking for my flight to the next destination... a private airstrip in the other corner of the country. It doesn't really have a name, so it takes a while to figure out which flight I'm waiting for. Finally have the right one... go through the one-lane security line... xray machine's not working. 2 "security" guys are fumbling through a Windows 3.1 manual trying to figure out how to reboot the PC connected to the machine (this was just 2 years ago). After several reboots they finally get the thing working enough to get all 5 passengers through and into the waiting area. It's a full flight with 5 passengers... the sixth seat is for the ice chest holding the refreshments. Our little single-engine plane rolls to a stop on the airstrip and I see there no terminal, no building... nothing at all. It's just a couple hours before sunset, and the other 3 passengers are immediately met by their guides from another lodge. My wife and I are standing there, in the middle of the wild, and the plane departs... we sure hope someone from our lodge remembers to meet us... this is Africa, with big hungry animals all over the place... no phones, no shelter, no nothing.... phew... here comes a jeep.... its our ride. May 26 17 03:42 pm Link missed lots of trains, planes, and busses. lots of layovers, delays, cancellations. lots of terrible hosts that nobody thought they should warn me about (studio apartments where I slept literally next to the other person with no privacy, cockroach infestations, hoarders, chainsmokers that would put chainsmokers to shame, etc etc). Somehow have never managed to lose a bag, it's been close but I managed to track it down. Nothing really beats getting arrested though. May 27 17 05:58 pm Link Eagle Rock Photographer wrote: It was probably when he hard the Pilot scream: "Oh Shit, we are about to die!" May 28 17 01:50 pm Link 2 things still scare me a bit when flying....when the plane takes off and it then turns to get into position to fly where it has to go...and it always seems to turn just a tad too much for my liking,almost like I think its going to barrel roll and I sort of press my hand on the arm rest as if thats going to steer the plane back to level position somehow....and....when the plane is landing and when its coming in, it seems to slow down to a ridiculously slow speed and I dont see how the thing doesnt just drop straight down. after all these years it still gets me. May 28 17 02:21 pm Link Eagle Rock Photographer wrote: Air speed maybe? When the ground stops moving , your near a stall. Angle of attack is only part of it. And yes, I am a pilot. May 28 17 03:17 pm Link I woke up in the wrong country once, well twice actually. I missed the Chernobyl radiation cloud by about half a day, but didn't know until days later. I was marooned on a small island on an estuary of Hudson Bay, but only briefly. Had a few exciting experiences on sailboats in tropical storms. One off a deserted island with the anchor chain wrapped around the keel with less than a foot of water under the boat and the tide going out. Puking all night long while solo sailing. That's real fun. May 28 17 03:24 pm Link Landing in Vietnam to the tap tap tap of bullets hitting our plane. G Reese May 28 17 03:24 pm Link G Reese wrote: Bet you can still hear that in your sleep. May 29 17 12:59 pm Link Traveling professionally for 15 years, you'd think I would have a plethora of horrible stories but I don't. Three come to mind; 1. Being hassled by AMERICAN customs coming back into the U.S. from Canada EVERY single time. I finally stopped traveling to Canada because of this. 2. Having to sleep in the Detroit airport (cancellations) strategically on chairs. Sleeping in the Newark airport waking up to a bunch of Canadians staring at me like I was homeless. 3. Breaking down on a Megabus coming back from Minneapolis to Chicago forcing me to miss my connection. I had to take a Greyhound and I befriended another lady (elderly) to help her figure out what to do. Then a dude was jacking off adjacent to us and another woman screamed and reported him to the police causing another delay. May 30 17 11:40 am Link 😉 May 30 17 12:32 pm Link |
