Real Life Emergencies Encountered as a Pilot

This is for those of us in this forum that either have a pilot certificate, or who have enough training to have encountered some abnormal flight conditions. A recent conversation at my FBO got me thinking, what (if any) real world flight emergencies have y’all encountered? Personally, I’ve lost brakes on landing, vacuum pump failure, downdrafts (nearly) into terrain, ect. What are some of your emergency situations and how did you navigate through them?

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I was on approach at EGKK and in CAT III conditions and there was a 11 knot wind gust and the A319 swerved about 50 feet left. I held right rudder and went for a go around.

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I was flying a cropduster at my grandfathers farm, and the water* was leaking out so all you could see was liquid pouring out of the bottom of the aircraft. Had to do it manually… I had to land it without a problem but that “broken” part of the aircraft was a huge problem for the crops. Not even pesticide was able to be able to fill out without leaking. If your talking about mechanical troubles, then not yet. Glad you could share

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Carb icing. I don’t need to say more.

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Not technically an ‘emergency’, but one of the FA’s had noticed a loose piece of metal on the left wing while taxiing at KDEN. This was an a320 I belive. They had to put the protective tape on the trailing edge of the wing, and the FO had to say it wasn’t duct tape.

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Engine failiure. C208s are really easy to handle those.

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I was traveling back to Europe via Japan and I saw this disaster…
I couldn’t take any pic as that moment didn’t have smartphone yet…


(Not my pic)

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Yikes! Thats one of those situations where it seems like it could have been worse than it was. Mechanical trouble is never fun, but thats where practice makes all the difference!

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I haven’t had a real world one yet without a CFI. All of mine have been in a controlled environment. Always eerie how quiet it gets when that prop stops spinning…

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Yeah, I’m going to give this topic a little bump because I don’t know how I came across this thread when it came out.

Anyways, I was on an old AA B738 (didn’t remember the registration) and we had an engine failure during flight. The pilots were able to have the engines restarted though and we landed safely in Aruba.

I was flying KCLT-TNCA

Not a pilot yet

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We were travelling from Istanbul Atatürk Airport to Birmingham and a passenger got knocked out but my dad (doctor) and a few other doctors gave her oxygen from this oxygen tank and she got back up.

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Not a pilot, but I was once on a AA 757 from BOS-LAX, back when I was about 5 years-I am now 22.

During this flight we had to make two medical emergency landings. The two medical emergencies were, a case of a nut based anaphylactic reaction of a woman traveling with her fiancé to LAX for their wedding. The person who was eating the nuts was her fiancé, who did not know she had a nut allergy…. The second medical emergency was as it was described to me as a 5 year old by the doctor sitting in front of us an elderly woman whom was too old to safely be flying, and I believe was having problems breathing.

We diverted to KABQ for one of the medical emergencies, and to KLAS for the second. In both cases there was two doctors on-board, as well as the paramedics whom met us after we landed. We ended up getting into LAX about 9 hrs after the original departure.

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Made an emergency landing at NZAA back in 2009 after our turboprop had a engine failure

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I wouldn’t say this is an “emergency” but is sure was terrifying (at least for everyone else). So there I sat, young Avgeek me on one of the front rows of a jetblue flight. All of a sudden everything turned cloudy and we heard a loung BANG as the aircraft rocked for a short period of time. The cabin started smelling like smoke and I saw the terrorized faces of the passengers while I was there sitting peacefully knowing it was a lightning strike and took it lightly as I knew planes could take lightning strikes. My theory was accepted as the captain later announced that we had been stricken by lightning. We landed safely without a problem and I left the jetway with a proud face knowing that we were hit by lightning. (I tried to write this as most emergency like as possible).

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What kind of turbo-prop?

ATR72. Air New Zealand

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No a story about me but about my dad.

When my dad was stil a Training Captain on the A340 for SAA. In 2012, On a flight from Hong Kong to Johannesburg, Which was delayed until the next day due to mechanical issues. The Captain Under Training was taking his rest break in the crew bunks when my dad fell ill and had a stroke. He was assisted by first aiders aboard and luckily a senior Captain traveling as a passenger was able to assist the crew and the flew landed safely in Johannesburg.

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This is about my friend who is not a pilot(nor am i) but he was flying on an Austrian A319 and he had a hydraulics failure in flight. He was fairly surprised to see all of the emergency vehicles upon arrival in Vienna.

I was going from Oslo to London. Our aircraft had issues with hydraulic pressure of some kind. When landed in Copenhagen. Ground crew fixed it and we proceeded to London 5 hours later.

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In Guam a few years ago, I was flying a United 777. We aborted takeoff a few times because apparently, the exit door was still open.

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