I have recently discovered The Flight Channel on Youtube and have been on a binge of airplane* accidents. Most seem to be the result of pilot error. Some pilots saved everyone by sheer skill, such as the landing of the plane in the hudson river but others have been the direct result of pilot negligence such as this one, where the son** of a pilot lead to the death of everyone on board :eek:
The two scariest experiences I've had on an airplane was 1) flying 15 hrs to Frankfurt (connection flight from Australia) and there was awful turbulence. There was a thunderstorm and I was convinced I was going to die. Obviously I didn't and when we were going to land in Frankfurt the captain came on the radio and said something along the lines of "we experienced some turbulence earlier in the flight but expect to make a smooth landing". I wish the captain had made an announcement when we were actually going through the turbulence but it was a night flight and I guess they didn't want to wake everyone up and for the pilots it wasn't a big deal.
2) I was flying to Gran Canaria with friends and the landing was super windy. When we finally landed safely a lot of people clapped and yes I was one of them. I feel no shame in this.
Other than that I've never felt scared on a flight, even though I can be a nervous flyer.
So AH'ers, have you ever had a near miss on a plane?
*Airplane vs Aeroplane either works for me, I'm just used to seeing airplane
**Not the son's fault at all, his father should've known better