Maybe not the worst, the very 1st time I flew I was flying Peoples Express out of Newark to Chicago. Our plane didn't arrive in Newark until 3 hours after its scheduled departure due to a "mechanical" problem. To complicate things, Peoples had another flight departing to Chicago every hour but we couldn't get on those flights and bump those passengers to the next flight so 2 planes came and left while we sat in the concourse in Newark (which was a crappy terminal). Finally our plane arrives and we board, and sit in the plane in the tarmac for an hour before we finally begin our take-off. 5 minutes later the pilot announces that as we flew past the control tower they noticed we had a cargo hatch not secured and must land to secure the hatch and should only be a minute.Originally Posted by TAH
As we are landing we notice that every emergency vehicle at Newark is along the runway waiting for us to land. Did I mention this is my 1st flight ever? Landing was otherwise uneventful EXCEPT that about 35 people demanded to be let off the plane because it was destined to crash. After being instructed that their luggage would not be removed and no refunds issued, 35 people still got off the plane muttering things like I don't care if my luggage dies as long as I live. OK, I'm thinking that every one of them probably had more flying experience than me and maybe they were right but then again there were still 300 people on board so I'll stick it out. That few minutes to secure the hatch stretched out to another hour, this was in July and they left the ventilation turned off so it was uncomfortable but eventually we took off and everything turned out fine. In fact my ride from O'Hare was not going to arrive until about 4 hours after I was scheduled to so that timed out pretty well. My flights have all been a joy since that one.
