3 airplane incidents as a student/instructor that are nothing compared to some of the stories on here!
1) Student mistakenly shutdown the engine during his pre-landing checklist on final approach. Would have ploughed through a shopping mall if I hadn’t got it started again before we got there. Missed it by about 100 ft.
2) Was out doing air maneuvers with a good student preparing for his Checkride. Asked him to do a Power On Stall. He put the aircraft in a spin over the beach in FL at 3,500ft. Getting out of a spin isn’t that difficult, but he wouldn’t get off the controls as he started screaming! I was screaming at him and he was screaming at the situation. I had to hit him to snap him out of it and recover the aircraft about 5 seconds before we’d have hit the beach/water. As I said, he was a good student, so I was surprised. He had been an Army Ranger in the Gulf, got engaged, came home and was trying to get into a good career for them, but his fiance had just broken up with him over the phone the night before. He didn’t SAY he was trying to end it and I didn’t ask, but he never flew again.
3) I was a private pilot out doing a long cross country in South Central FL by Lake Okeechobee. No storms forecast but an overcast developed. I was under it as all hell broke loose. I ended up in the dark in the middle of the day, trying to follow a road in the driving rain, at 100’ above the ground. I could only see the road below/ahead of me when a car went by with its headlights on. There was a small airfield nearby. I headed for where it should have been and turned on the lights. The runway was under water, but I had to get on the ground. It was so windy, I couldn’t land the first time of asking and on the go around I almost hit telephone wires I could barely see. Got on the ground on the second attempt and thanked my lucky stars. Turns out I had flown under a massive thunderstorm that dropped on me, and also caused damage on the ground about 30 miles E of me as it passed over. About 20 flight students got caught in the unforecast weather and were stuck out across FL that day. I spent a week in Arcadia that night! It was the most scared I have ever been in an aircraft, by far!
Thankfully (knocks on wood), since those very early days, I haven’t come anywhere close in an aircraft and have found myself becoming ever more risk averse! Now, I worry more about other drivers on the road than anything else.
Some of the medical stories on here are horrendous!! I had the big saliva gland on the left side of my neck removed about 10 yrs ago. After the antibiotics wore off, my neck blew up like a balloon and they ended up taking about 2 pints of strawberry milkshake-like blood and puss out of it. I was admitted into the Infectious Disease Ward at the hospital, as they couldn’t figure out what it was. I was on two IVs of their strongest broad spectrum antibiotics for a week that had to constantly be moved because they were causing my veins to collapse. Ended up with them in my inner elbows by the funny bone! Weird place and it made sleeping impossible!
Turns out it was strep that got into my neck cavity and went to town!
To those of you who served and had a real and serious brush with death, my sincere thanks for your service and sacrifice. You are men amongst men.
