What was your biggest "close call"?
Posted by Business-Station-933@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 109 comments
The moment that made you realize that complacency truly kills, or that you know nothing, etc. Something that truly opened your eyes.
How many hours did you have?
Mine was hitting power lines during final approach when I had around 55 hours of flight time. I totally felt it and the plane's attitude changed. Curiously, I didn’t have any emotional reaction. I controlled the plane and landed it. Secured the plane, got in my car, and started driving home. It wasn’t until the drive that the whole thing really hit me.
The next day, I tried to truly understand how close I had gotten. I measured the wheel and everything (don’t even know why…). I was around 4 inches (max) from hitting the cable with the upper portion of the wheel (the wheel would have tangled in the wire and I would be dead).
What was your biggest "close call"?
Funghie@reddit
Mine’s not so bad but interesting to note. I was about 60 hours in. Solo in PA28. Doing circuits. Had a very rough engine after a touch and go. Lost a lot of power. Immediately checked carb heat. Everything set as it should be. At about 100 feet still very rough. No way to land ahead. (Cables and obstructions). I continued the circuit and actually flew it shorter and faster than usual. Landed without issue.
The interesting part. Even though I was only 60 hours in. The training took over. ANC. No panic. Very calm. Concentration at max but not flustered. Etc.
When I walked back in to the office, there were a lot of “wow” faces. And someone divulged that the same aircraft had been reported a few days before for the same issue.
As many have said. It’s not until you get down and start to think about it that the “gravity” of situation hits you.
AFBUFFPilot@reddit
After over 3000 military and 6000 TT, I have too many to mention.
Business-Station-933@reddit (OP)
I knew the wires were there and it was in a field I knew very well.
I trusted other pilots' words when they said the wires were "below threshold elevation". Then, during the approach, I subconsciously assumed that the fact I was above threashold would be enough to pass close, but not hit it (pure complacency).
Turns out they weren't below threashold elevation, and I got very luck.
AFBUFFPilot@reddit
Wow Crazy Thanks Glad it worked out OK for you
Phocio@reddit
At about 20 hours right before my solo I was on short final and I had someone that didn’t stop on the hold short line and turned onto the runway. It was at an uncontrolled airport and I kinda panicked and just yelled over the radio “I’m on short final!” The instructor took the controls and did a go around. The other pilot was older, he pulled off the runway and after we landed he came over and apologized, something about he didn’t hear the radio call out when I turned final when he was doing his run up and he didn’t see me so he turned onto the runway.
Business-Station-933@reddit (OP)
Some people don't pay enough attention when operating at uncontrolled airports. Its impressive. They enter the runways when they shouldn't, they ignore the runway in use, etc.
Especially if they are used to operate at controlled airports...
bguitard689@reddit
Near midair ( say 300-500 feet horizontal separation, same altitude) with another flight school aircraft on my discovery flight while I was “holding” the controls and flying straight and level. I did not know any better, thought that was normalish.
Business-Station-933@reddit (OP)
Happened exactly the same to me. Probably same distance... on my discovery flight aswell.
I knew it was bad... but not how bad it was.
astroamy24@reddit
Wait what did you hit the power lines with? Sounds terrifying.
Business-Station-933@reddit (OP)
Tires. At least one of them.
RBR927@reddit
Tires.
astroamy24@reddit
Ah I see, I misunderstood “4 invhes from hitting the cable with the upper portion of the wheel”, as the entire wheel. Glad you made it down safe!
Yellowtelephone1@reddit
I dont mess with solo single engine IMC anymore.
ESP with no autopilot at night.
Business-Station-933@reddit (OP)
Yap. Its a pass for me.
The_Warrior_Sage@reddit
What makes it so dangerous? Task saturation?
Yellowtelephone1@reddit
Foggles or other view limiting devices do JACK SHIT to prepare pilots for the actual conditions
Mountain-Captain-396@reddit
When I was getting my instrument rating my CFII made it a point to do as much of it in actual IMC as possible for that very reason. I am very thankful to him for that, plus we got some amazing views breaking out just above a layer at 4,000 and skimming the tops of the clouds.
AFBUFFPilot@reddit
This is absolutely the way. I’m an old head….and I ALWAYS make IFR studs (and many ppl) get some real IFR simply because it’s so different from foggles or a hood.
GenerationSelfie2@reddit
For lack of actual, hood work at night is a close second. I was fortunate enough to get a decent amount of actual in during my rating but did a lot of work with my CFII at night, and drilling my instrument scan without the subconscious cues of light and shadow really helped.
Mountain-Captain-396@reddit
Pretty much. You have to fly the plane, pull up the approach plates, fly the plane, tune the radios and nav aids, fly the plane, make sure you're on the correct course and at the correct altitude, oh yeah, and fly the plane.
Even just normal straight and level flying takes a lot more concentration in IMC than VMC because you lack all the subtle visual cues that help you when you're in VMC. Instead of being able to see the horizon out of the corner of your eye even when you're heads down writing something, you have to look at the instruments to make sure you're not turning, climbing, descending, or drifting off course.
obecalp23@reddit
Isn’t the bush pilot on YouTube doing this alone? I thought it was a normal scenario pilots fly in.
HappiestAnt122@reddit
I’m not saying everything you see on YouTube is a bad idea or bad advice, but “I saw it on YouTube” definitely does not mean it is normal or safe. I’m sure there are plenty of people flying around single pilot in IMC without any automation, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. At the very least it is something you should be very careful with.
obecalp23@reddit
I understand. But what do you mean automation? He does it professionally in Asia. So maybe I’m totally wrong.
HappiestAnt122@reddit
Automation meaning some sort of autopilot. If you are single pilot in IMC even a fairly basic autopilot that can keep the plane straight and level while you brief an approach plate or write down a clearance can be extremely useful. Used appropriately autopilot can be a lifesaver, literally.
The_Warrior_Sage@reddit
Yeah makes sense.
Pilot-Imperialis@reddit
This is a big one for me too. Even if I’m teaching a student, the shared workload makes things much easier. I’ll absolutely punch through a cloud layer, but prolonged single engine IMC without automation is asking for trouble.
Yellowtelephone1@reddit
Yeah. I’m embarrassed to say I learned that lesson the hard way. Thankfully I got lucky and took a lesson away from it.
VelitGames@reddit
Every bad situation you avoid putting yourself in is a situation which will never cause serious issues.
a_provo_yakker@reddit
Be me, be confident CFII in Arizona and about to head off to airline. C172N with a few bells and whistles like 180hp upgrade and G5 stack with GTN hooked up to foreflight. Late Feb/early March. File IFR and fly it just for funzies.
Night XC in what became some actual IMC, no A/P, avoiding icing, transitioned through some Bravo like real IFR traffic and even flew a visual approach for the first time. Like that South Park episode about the Mormons, Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumbbbb.
GryphonGuitar@reddit
Cessna seat rail thing. On initial climbout the seat shot all the way back. Natural instinct is to pull for dear life, which would have killed me.
Business-Station-933@reddit (OP)
Happened to me the opposite. During final approach, seat shot all the way forward. I don't know how I didn't crash. I think I applied both rudders at the same time (to prevent it from going forward) and didn't touch the yoke.
SpartanDoubleZero@reddit
I had that happen during one of my pre solo training flights!! Thank god my instructor was in the right seat. I’m happy I had my wits about me and let go as it happened, my instructor said my controls before I had even slid all the way back. We came back in and landed and I got some extra ground training on ADs.
Virian@reddit
For some reason, this is the scenario that terrifies me the most. Even over losing an engine.
HipsEnergy@reddit
Same. That always freaked me out.
AmericanFromAsia@reddit
What do you do in that situation exactly? Temporarily give up on rudder coordination while you get readjusted?
HardCorePawn@reddit
Had a boss who had that happen... his solution was to spread his legs/feet to the sides to get some leverage using the side wall and centre console so he could arrest the slide backwards and push forward.
He actually had me practise it in a controlled situation. I have long legs, so it seemed to work quite well. Thankfully, I never had to actually use it in a real situation.
GryphonGuitar@reddit
Leaned all the way forward. Feet were completely off the pedals, yes, but I kept the yoke under control by turning myself into a human question mark. The plane, as far as I recall, levelled off a bit but better that way than the other way. I wasn't exactly chasing Vx or Vy, more trying to stay alive.
Once I was at a thousand feet I levelled off and scooted the seat forward until I was where I wanted to be. Then kept flying.
Without right rudder I was off course but it was easy enough to steer back once I had it under control.
Scariest thing to ever happen to me but I learned something about myself that day.
draggingmytail@reddit
Good lord. I watched a video once and the theorized cause was seat rail failure.
Ever since, this has been my irrational fear.
OldGuyNORDO@reddit
I always do the cessna seat jiggle test for this reason..terrifying thought
GryphonGuitar@reddit
Believe me I never forget it since then.
554TangoAlpha@reddit
You hit power lines and didn’t crash? Holy shit. Mine were both in Alaska, landing on an iced over “rwy” thought I was sliding straight into the trees. Also hitting a 2ft pothole on another “rwy” can’t believe the gear wasn’t ripped off.
Business-Station-933@reddit (OP)
Yeah, it was pure luck, I guess.
The weird part is that I noticed it immediately, but had no 'fight or flight' response. I just gave a very cold acknowledgment, like: 'Yeah, hit it. Can't come this low next time." Then I landed right after.
My main fear to this day are mid-air collisions.
Competitive_Tea6785@reddit
Last time I flew (1980's) - Flying Piper Tomahawk on Solo - took off and did a 1.5 hour solo flight. Coming back in, No Radios. In busy Class D Airport (Private/Commercial). Entered of opposite side of Airport and controller flashed me a "GREEN LIGHT" - Prepped for a Left Turn Final - Landed and sat there...No Truck with "FOLLOW ME" came out...On opposite side of Airport from FBO - had to Cross commercial landing strip. He flashed me a Green (Taxi) and Immediate RED right before the main commercial runway. I C-130- landed in front of me. Taxied to the FBO - Sweat Drenched...They didn't care (LEASE BACK PLANE". Scared the $#(@ out of me. Not earth shattering, but made me rethink my decisions.
braided--asshair@reddit
Had a student smash the wrong rudder and pull up on a simulated engine failure on takeoff. Almost gave the plane a burgundy finish on the leather.
Chappietime@reddit
On my private checkride, I was doing a landing at an uncontrolled field, making left traffic and all the appropriate calls. No one else was on the frequency. Around midfield, I noticed one of those Burt Rutan canard kit planes was coming straight at us, going the wrong way in the pattern. I took evasive action and landed normally. The other plane never twitched.
The examiner said something to the effect of, “it’s a good thing you saw him, mid-air collisions are an automatic failure.”
Creative-Dust5701@reddit
Damn. thats one cool DPE
OneUncookedNoodle@reddit
I had a very similar thing happen on my last lesson before the PPL checkride. Was doing touch and gos with my teacher and had just pushed full throttle after landing as I see a pa28 coming straight toward us to land in the opposite direction. Mind you, we were 2 people in a cessna 150, didn't feel very cocky in that 1v1 situation. I'm pretty sure the guy in the pa28 didn't even see us because he kept coming straight toward us. It was too late for us to abort the takeoff, so I did my best to get us off the ground and out of his path as quickly as possible. We were about 50ft from each other when we finally got out of the collision path. That evasive maneuver should have earned me some points toward my aerobatics license tbh because I felt like I was pulling some proper gs there lol
draggingmytail@reddit
I shouldn’t laugh.. but that’s a good joke from the DPE
HardCorePawn@reddit
Dark humour is the best humour...
Cmrippert@reddit
Dark humor is like food, not everyone gets it.
Logic203@reddit
Laughing so loud that its hard breathing.
tuwood@reddit
Had one where I was flying right seat with a buddy who was a fairly new PPL that was struggling with bouncing his landings a bit. I'm not an instructor and barely have 150 hours myself at the time so blind leading the blind, but figured another set of eyes would help.
We come in and he's way high and starts slowing to flair and i told him you're way too high, you need to go around. he waits a little too long where the airspeed gets super low and he starts pushing the throttle forward super slow and i'm like, hit the throttle we're going around and i push it forward for him and right after I get full throttle he reaches down and dumps flaps from full to 0% (Cirrus SR22) and the second i saw him do it i glanced up and saw the slip/skid indicator was pegged over to the side and the stall horn starts blaring...
I screamed out "MY PLANE" and jammed right rudder to the floor and got full flaps back on before it passed 50% flaps. Without question if i wouldn't have taken over we would have stalled and rolled in if flaps got to 0%. We were probably 50'-75' up in the air I'd guess.
He was so freaked out he couldn't even land so i had to land us from the right seat, which i had never done.
Made him go up with an instructor and get a lot more time in before he went solo again...
tuwood@reddit
Doing a night cross country with my instructor during PPL and we filed a VFR flight plan, but made several stops and did touch and go's at a few airports.
While we were on base to final my cellphone starts ringing and it's the FAA and we both go, oh shit we forgot to close the flight plan and he's scrambling trying to get the flight plan up on his EFB and i'm trying to answer the call and get it working and the next thing you know i glance down and my airspeed was right at stall and i was just getting ready to turn final.
Went oh, shit and immediately dropped the nose and went full throttle executing a go-around, all the while my instructor had no idea what was going on. So, bad on me and VERY bad on instructor. Bad timing with a lot of external distrations all at once.
DoctorWhiskey@reddit
Last week. I was holding short for runway 23 for inbound to land and he and I were communicating (untowered). He landed, said he was clear, I lined up to depart and see lights starting coming down the runway.
Some dumbass was NORDO and decided to depart on 5. I asked "uh, is there a plane departing on 5?" The guy that just landed "Yes!" I was luckily able to turn around and get of the runway.
Me: "Departing aircraft, coms check."
Dumbass: "Loud and clear."
Me: "Then why did you just takeoff on 5 when the other guy just landed on 23 and I said I was departing 23?"
Dumbass: "I never heard you."
Me: "Hear me now?"
Dumbass: "Yes."
Me: "Well, you need to get your radio checked."
He was full of shit. He wasn't on frequency until he started rolling and saw me or didn't care. I was pissed.
Dr_Lovebutt@reddit
One of my first flights after getting my private, single pilot flying in an alert area. I’m doing my scans and in the corner of my vision on my left window is a helicopter about 200 feet below me traveling opposite direction. I’ve used flight following every single time since.
Iancshafer@reddit
First solo in a PA28, my CFI had his GoPro setup running to capture the moment. First of 3 - Took off, solid radio calls (uncontrolled airport), hit TPA, began to configure for landing, nice square pattern, stabilized at 500 ft, 8mph quartering right cross wind, went a tad long, touched down on right gear, settled on the left, nose down, and brakes.
Breathed a sigh of relief, taxied off to congrats from my CFI.
Then I noticed, mixture was still lean for taxi.
jtyson1991@reddit
When I'm leaned for taxi there's no way I could take off at that mixture setting, the engine would die at full throttle. It seems like maybe you just leaned a little?
Iancshafer@reddit
Yeah, it was set and about 1/2 the travel distance for the mixture. But, I very much doubt that corresponded to 50% lean….
jtyson1991@reddit
Wow, that sounds right about where I'd have it for taxi. Was it a high DA that day?
Iancshafer@reddit
Early AM in May in Southern Nj, it was probably 700-1100 ft is my guess
HipsEnergy@reddit
One of my first landings in a plane with retractable gear, a PA-28, after getting my PPL. My instructor asks if I've lowered the gear, I take that to mean I haven't, instead of realising he was just making sure. I flipped them up, he flipped them back down, then up, the whole thing got severely distracting nearly down to the flare, when I just rammed throttle and went around. CFI: "Why are you going around?" Me: "Because I'd rather go around and make sure gear is down than land in confusion." CFI: "But I made sure they were down." Me: "Yet as POC, I didn't feel like it was a safe landing, given the confusion on short final." CFI grumbled a bit, then we talked it over with the other CFIs, who sided with me. They congratulated me on that thinking, but it was still my stupid action that caused the confusion in the first place.
NinerEchoPapa@reddit
Pulled the mixture to lean instead of the carb heat to cold turning base to final. Wondered why suddenly everything went very quiet. Wasn’t high enough to make the runway but fortunately instinct kicked in and i just firewalled every lever and was horrified when my hand travelled all the way forward on the mixture control. I was probably 70 hours or so at that point. Thinking back I really don’t know how I made that mistake at all. Carb heat cold and mixture lean are two entirely different directions and levers. The only thing they have in common is that they’re next to each other (PA28).
HipsEnergy@reddit
That's something one of my instructors always mentioned, that it happens more often than you think, so make yourself LOOK at the knobs.
CenterYourHDG_bug@reddit
I hope the lesson you came away from that with was to always be in a position to make the runway in a single.
Pilots flying their downwind miles past the runway drives me up the wall. You should be able to lose your engine at any point in the pattern and be able to make the runway (except for a bit on upwind I guess)
Tricky-Eggplant-6032@reddit
While flying with my instructor we had a comms failure at our uncontrolled field (he literally accidentally hit the off button while handing me a piece of cardboard for simulated instrument 😂). Wind was dead, so we took the standard approach, obviously we were talking to no one on CTAF. In the pattern we looked to see if anyone was taxiing/about to depart/doing run up and didn’t see anyone. As we were coming into land on 30 another aircraft was taking off on 12, I saw him and we both evaded and it was fine, but like….damn. Had a little bit of a pucker factor there. Hilariously enough when it came time for me to solo, I couldn’t go through my instructor because he didn’t have hull insurance on the aircraft, so I switched to a different instructor at the local part 61 academy and the plane that I then trained in was the one I almost hit that day.
DisregardLogan@reddit
Resetting the flaps during a touch and goes in the summer. Single runway, towered airport.
I did a go around and retracted the flaps from 20 to 10. Flap switch (older Cessna) didn’t go back to neutral properly and went from 20 to 40 within maybe 3 or 4 seconds. Didn’t notice what happened for a moment until the airspeed suddenly tanked. I was about maybe 150-180 ft at this point and the ground and trees were coming up quick.
I got it stabilised somehow. The plane had gained and lost a shitton of altitude back and forth before I got it stabilised. Tower called up and asked if we were ok, I say affirm. My CFI was just sitting there with his arms crossed the whole time, didn’t say a single word except to just remember to “fly the airplane” once I was in a good climb.
Didn’t really feel it until I got into the car to go home and then I just sat there for a solid 10 minutes in silence
ToastedBread107@reddit
below stall speed right before landing 100 feet above the ground. I'm lucky I still need an instructor.
Scott2G@reddit
I was a passenger on a Southwest nighttime flight to Miami. 1st landing attempt, go around. 2nd landing attempt, go around. 3rd landing attempt, successful, but rough. I stayed behind on the plane to chat with one of the flight attendants (went to college together, just catching up) and as the cockpit door opened, one of the pilots said to the other "that was close...way too fucking close" and the other pilot nodded. He was pale white, with eyes as big as dinner plates. No idea what happened, but that scared the shit outta me lol.
jtyson1991@reddit
Maybe close to running out of fuel?
adventuresofh@reddit
Last year on the way home from eastern Oregon (I live in western Oregon.)
It was the end of a long day. I had flown a couple of young eagles rides that morning, and did a 3 hour flight back to the airport I work at. My boss had asked me to come in for a little bit, and I was there for a while. Got back in the airplane and flew the 15 minutes it takes to get home. Worst landing I have ever had. The tower asked if I was ok. I knew I was tired - didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I was fighting through the landing. I came as close as I ever have to wrecking the airplane.
In hindsight, I should’ve realized how tired I was, left the airplane in the work hangar, and gotten a ride home - I had just figured I was comfortable enough in the airplane (it’s an airplane I have several hundred hours in) it was a short flight, and I could go straight to bed when I got home. Had about 700 hours at the time. Fatigue is the real deal. I usually fly pretty conservatively, I don’t know why I pushed it that day.
I’ve had other close calls with weather and other aircraft, but this one really sticks with me because it was my own stupidity that got me into that situation to begin with.
dablack123@reddit
I have about 1200 hours in high performance planes but I recently started flying cessnas to build flight time for my ATP. I had about 40 hours in these little 172s and I took a cross country to John Wayne. Landing on the left runway, tower warned me about a CRJ between the runways, holding short of the right runway. I was like "ok um thanks" and aimed a little further down the runway because i figured there must be a reason he mentioned it.
As I crossed the threshold and passed the CRJ, my plane jolted as my landing gear flew through the jet wash from the CRJ's high-mounted engines. Big pucker factor and I've laid awake at night once or twice thinking about what would have happened if I hadn't changed my aimpoint off the cuff.
Willing_Shame2246@reddit
When I was instructing, a student showed up with 2 guests to ride along in the backseat. If you know a C172, you know 4 people puts us extremely overweight. She talked highly about how they drove from 3+ hours away for this. Me being a dumb ass who had no spine, I didn’t have the heart to tell her they couldn’t both come. So while she preglighted, I ran the numbers and brought it to the chief pilot thinking the chief would be the “bad guy” and shut it down. Nope… I was told “you’re fine. Just rotate at a higher speed”. So I took a fully loaded c172, several hundreds pounds over weight on a 90°+ day flying. On a 4,000 foot runway with an additional 1000 feet from the end to the trees, I cleared the tops of the trees by inches. I learned a lot that day
Hemmschwelle@reddit
My biggest close call in terms of total MTOW involved would be the time two ANG C-130 were on course to overfly the runway at 600 AGL opposite the prevailing traffic. I was at 300 AGL in glider on aerotow and climbing when we first saw them. We were unable to turn right because of rising terrain.
ArutlosJr11@reddit
Not a close call but at 30 hours in my CFI and I lost our alternator and then our battery at night. Fun.
alexthe5th@reddit
While I was holding short at a midfield intersection, ATC cleared me across an active runway while a PC-12 was touching down. I thankfully looked to my left and saw the landing lights, so I was about to respond with an "unable" when the controller keyed up with a frantic "hold position! hold position!".
ATC are great, but they're human and make mistakes. Whenever possible, double-check, it can save lives.
swaggler@reddit
23 August 2025, circuit training with a 15 hour student on a 10 metre wide runway, 600kg low-wing.
On touch-down, the student applies full right rudder with some right aileron also applied, for strange reasons that I later learn, but for now, half a second later, we have just hit the right wing on the ground (I didn't know that until later) and we are no longer on the runway. We are over some farm crops about 2-3ft tall and I just got the throttle off the student and applied full power and levelled the wings, now with 20-30ft crops directly in front of us, with flaps deployed. I had a brief moment of resignation and considered throttle idle to accept our fate as gracefully as possible, but quickly changed my mind. At full throttle, and estimated 40knots airspeed, I put just enough, but not too much, right aileron and rudder to get the left wing over the top of the tall crops, with the (electric) stall warning blaring. Now at about 40ft AGL, there were tall trees, they were coming up soon, but I had time to retract the flaps and aim for a gap. It felt like it all happened in 1-2 seconds. After enough instructing, you think you've seen it all from students, then a brief moment of complacency you get your wake-up call.
Finally at circuit height, I wasn't sure if we had landing gear. The student starts telling me that they, "applied right rudder too early" and "will do it better next time." I explained that the lesson is finished now, and we are going to check if we have landing gear, then land. The landing gear was fine, but I later found minor damage to the right aileron. According to the student, there is a theoretical sequence of events for a touch and go, which includes applying full power, then right rudder, but in this case, the order of application was accidentally reversed.
Anyway, that was a wake-up call. You think you've seen it all. You haven't.
Necessary_Topic_1656@reddit
Took off on a 45 minute flight without the fuel to complete it and didn’t notice until 1/2 to the destination.
aye246@reddit
During instrument training with my instructor was in actual IFR, talking to ATC, and given clearance to descend along with a traffic advisory about a contact they had with no Mode C (contact was not in Class C or higher airspace) in out area. Started our descent and like a minute or two later my instructor just blurts out “holy shit!” and said he saw the tail of this contact slide through the airspace a hundred or so feet immediately below us. So obviously could have been a lot worse had we started our descent a few seconds earlier or came down at a higher rate.
GenerationSelfie2@reddit
Our airport is within a 1.5-2hr flight from KOSH and sort of the last stop before having to duck under or around the ORD bravo coming from the east coast, so naturally around late July we get a lot of transient traffic. On Sunday, my CFII was doing pattern work with a private student when they had an AC enter the traffic pattern by dropping out of the IMC overcast layer sans radio calls and presumably sans clearance.
Mynoseispurple@reddit
Flying up to my CFI check ride, left at 5:30am. Was maybe 30 mins into a 2 hour flight when I noticed the ground disappeared and rain started. I figured I was fine. Strobes went off and I saw clouds around me, landing light same thing. Temp was just a few degrees above freezing. Ended up descending to the airport below me. Got out of the clouds maybe 1500 AGL and could hardly see due to the rain. Wind shifted on final and had to go around, while not seeing much of anything besides out the side windows. Landed safely.
TLDR: don’t fly into rainy conditions, at night, over rural areas, while freezing temps exist.
Imperial_Citizen_00@reddit
PPL stage 3, super nervous cause I had a check ride in a week…short field landing, 10+ kt crosswind, off center and drifting…airplane ballooned on a too high rotation, started twisting cause I lost focus, thought I was gonna side load her real bad when we came down, tried to go around but we were slow, full power but the plane still dropped again, CFI took the controls and we bounced one more time before we straightened out and the CFI gave me back the controls to continue the climb out
We circled around, did a full stop and I requested we end the flight because I wasn’t in the right mindset anymore to continue, I was shaken up
Every landing after that up until my check-ride was butter, I was terrified to make that same mistakes again, lol
TeaAndTalks@reddit
Discovery flight in am Aerobat.
Instructor gives through a roll and spin.
Then talks about demoing imc in cloud.
He turns towards the nearest cloud and we head towards it. My eyes flick to the attitude indicator, which was swimming as it hadn't been caged.
Instructor doesn't notice.
I wait a few seconds, then point to the adi.
He breaks off about ten seconds before cloud entry.
Needless to say, he lost his job soon afterwards.
Nearly died that day.
gaidar@reddit
Flying instruments, breaking out of the cloud and seeing a glider passing extremely close in front of me. ATC advised me about an aircraft with an unknown direction of flight and an altitude of approximately 30 seconds later. I'm not sure what I could have done, yet I expect people may be breaking rules and flying where they shouldn't be.
ztaylor16@reddit
My closest was about 50ft? Away from hitting a falcon/eagle/hawk? In a diamond DA-20 with about 30 hours of flight time.
Doc_Hank@reddit
Private pilot, about 80 hours, flying a friend in a 182...He had started flight training and quit, asked about stalls.
So, I cleared the area, did an accelerated stall. When the stall broke, he startled and kicked the rudder pedal, and we started a spin.
Enough_Professor_741@reddit
I was flying night IFR single pilot freight in a Mu-2. Hard, low IFR but indefinite ceiling and RVR 1800, so I started the DME arc into the localizer. No radar. The airplane was equipped with a king flip-flop radio- pushed the button and it changed frequencies. I had done this approach over and over. Got everything configured on the arc, frequencies loaded, and marker beacons set to be loud. I got close to the localizer, pushed the flip-flop flop and lined up on the localizer. Glide slope was flagged. Hm. I continued the approach and used the DME to see where I was. I kept stepping lower and lower because there was no terrain or obstacles. I turned it from a localizer-only approach into a half assed full ILS. I was .2 a mile from the runway per the dme and snuck down to 200 feet. No marker beacons sounded. I broke out right over some houses and a road. Did a full missed apporach and on the climbout realized I had flip flopped to many times and I was tracking in on the VOR. Darn near hit it. It rattled me so bad I continued on to the next destination and just shook for a while. Complacency nearly killed me.
signuporloginagain@reddit
American Check?
Enough_Professor_741@reddit
US Check
draggingmytail@reddit
Was involuntarily part of a WWII reenactment…
CFI and I were doing pattern work and a TBM Avenger was visiting our busy Class E and doing rides for people. Guy was an idiot and seemingly didn’t know how traffic patterns worked. Had 2 near collisions with him. Second one, we also got T-boned, he was maybe 20-30 ft below when he passed under us.
Guy decided to do a 360 inside the pattern as we were turning crosswind to downwind.
Almost every time I’ve had a warbird in the pattern, they’d done something stupid and almost caused accidents.
pimms_et_fraises@reddit
Mechanic misconfigured the throttle during the 100hr - which caused total air cutoff when pulling to idle during a power-off stall during my stage 1 check. Propeller fully stopped at about 1,500 ft and we were over a swamp. Let ATC know while we were figuring it out and they asked “Do you have anywhere to put it down?” and my CFI said “The answer to that is negative.” Checklists work. We got it restarted and emergency landed at an alternate. Happened again when going idle on landing. Pushed it off the runway on foot.
pimms_et_fraises@reddit
Mechanic misconfigured the throttle during the 100hr - which caused total air cutoff when pulling to idle during a power-off stall during my stage 1 check. Propeller fully stopped at about 1,500 ft and we were over a swamp. Let ATC know while we were figuring it out and they asked “Do you have anywhere to put it down?” and my CFI said “The answer to that is negative.” Checklists work. We got it restarted and emergency landed at an alternate. Happened again when going idle on landing. Pushed it off the runway on foot.
Frosty-Brain-2199@reddit
I might have not put the fuel cap back on after filling it up. Thankfully I noticed some fuel dripping from the back on the wing when I was doing my flight controls check at run up.
SpamSushi206@reddit
During PPL training, was recovering from a off stall and a Cessna flew right across our nose just slightly above us. Prob had about less than 50ft separation.
PositiveRate_Gear_Up@reddit
Near midair - we were close to the airfield in the practice area and I had my student doing slow flight at 3,000 feet.
We’d done clearing turns, and were flying cardinal headings. My student was struggling and sitting slightly low of altitude (100-200 feet low) and I had him do a turn from West to South.
Around 220* in the turn, still a hundred feet low…I caught glimpse of a piper cruising a hundred feet higher go directly over top of us. We pushed further down, initiated a right turn and we saw that the guy never deviated, or changed course. Have to assume he never saw us, and had no clue how close we all came to a really bad day.
Alert-Comedian5782@reddit
I’m a banner tower and I’ve had near misses
HateJobLoveManU@reddit
Some dumbass in a Bonanza zipping under me by maybe 200' when they were near my airport while I was doing a 180 to join the 45 and didn't say shit on frequency.
usmcmech@reddit
I nearly T-boned a fuel truck at DFW 0 dark early one morning taxiing from one ramp to the other. His door handle disappeared under my nose.
Suspicious_Clock2311@reddit
I was 6 miles from an untoward airport looking for and talking to a guy coming into land. I was 1000agl waiting and looking for the other plane to pass so I could turn out and set up for 8s on pylons when suddenly a 3rd plane, a ultra light on floats and off comms flew 200 feet below me with in an 1/8 of a mile. I was so fixated on finding the inbound traffic I didn't even think of the possibility of another airplane on the area, much less at that altitude
500hrs
BookieWookie69@reddit
Long cross country while working on my private. Tried to land with a high cross wind, performed a go around by throwing the flaps up from 30 to 0 degrees. I felt the plane falling backwards.
SATSewerTube@reddit
Completely lost control of a Metroliner in a thunderstorm. Wx radar (shitty) showed good and ATC said it looked like we were around it so I started the turn…whoopsie. Got it back about 4k feet later
KrabbyPattyCereal@reddit
Mine was during commercial single training (it happens to everyone not just freshies). I had flown all week during a dry spell and had probably done 5 preflights or so. At the end of the week, I thought to myself “why am I sumping the fuel, I’m sure it’s fine” and skipped it. After finishing the preflight I kind of had a feeling and thought “fuck man, don’t get lazy”. Lo and behold, when I sumped, the whole sump cup was full of water. Real pucker moment for sure.
Far_Top_7663@reddit
An extremely near mid-air. I was flying a Tomahawk with an instructor at my side (I was a PPL already but was getting familiarized with a visual corridor I had not flown before). We were at 1000 ft and, severe VMC daylight, looking outside because we were flying very visually (no instrument reference, no VOR, no GPS...) and "out of nowhere" a Cessna (172, I think) crossed right in front of us in a perpendicular path, exactly at the same altitude, and 2 seconds later tops we flew through their wake turbulence (very mild, but "proves" the "exact same latitude" claim). The pilot had sun glasses, a moustache and a red cap. I didn't even had time to react, scare or scream. They must have been in plain sight at our 2-to-3 o'clock for a couple of business days before we crossed, and yet we never got them in sight until they crossed just in front of us, too late for any evasive action. I think that the "target" must have been pretty much static on the windshield and at the horizon, which complicates visual acquisition. Unfortunately I could not get any lesson of what to do different the next time. We were both actively looking for traffic, and I was already doing my best to spot traffic. The lesson is that there are inherent risks that one can mitigate but not eliminate, and there is a "chance" factor beyond one's control on surviving each flight. That puts a lower boundary to the risk level, so it makes being great at everything that IS under our control even more important, to avoid rising the risk level beyond that unavoidable minimum.
Rakan_Fury@reddit
TAF and radar showed a risk of thunderstorms on a leg of a VFR trip once. Called the FIC and they said I might be fine but also the way the storm was embedded meant I wouldnt see it until I was practically in it. Since the area of risk was at an airport and after grabbing a few things there I would be flying directly away from the supposed storm, I figured I could just land there and wait it out if things were actually bad.
Landed there no problem, but shortly after takeoff got caught in some rain clouds that chased me for ~5 minutes. The rain was light so I decided to keep going and did manage to get out, but quickly realized that if I was a few minutes slower I might have taken off directly into something extreme. Made me realize I needed to brush up on my understanding of weather systems hard.
Rickenbacker69@reddit
This was in a Schempp-Hirth Arcus glider. I was on a loooong final, intending to start the engine if I couldn't find any lift before the field. But I waited a little too long, and was basically on short final when I got the engine started. I turned left, against the traffic pattern, because there was an airport on the right, so I coulnd't turn that way. Ended up meeting someone who was on a normal base. WAY too close to a head-on collision, but I got lucky.
Lesson learned. Even if I could start my engine on short final, as I did here, I'll just go ahead and land and start it on the ground instead.
TheTangoFox@reddit
Ran a plane out of usable fuel, maybe
TheHidingGoSeeker@reddit
Flying in the pattern at 1000ft. Was #2. I was about midfield and the guy in front of me was probably abeam the #’s. Out of nowhere someone came about 100ft from us and had to be about the same altitude as us just overflying the field.
Mike93747743@reddit
Nice try FAA.
ClearedHotCrush@reddit
Being shot at by multiple SA-7s and an M1939 AAA piece
rFlyingTower@reddit
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
The moment that made you realize that complacency truly kills, or that you know nothing, etc. Something that truly opened your eyes.
How many hours did you have?
Mine was hitting power lines during final approach when I had around 55 hours of flight time. I totally felt it and the plane's attitude changed. Curiously, I didn’t have any emotional reaction. I controlled the plane and landed it. Secured the plane, got in my car, and started driving home. It wasn’t until the drive that the whole thing really hit me.
The next day, I tried to truly understand how close I had gotten. I measured the wheel and everything (don’t even know why…). I was around 4 inches (max) from hitting the cable with the upper portion of the wheel (the wheel would have tangled in the wire and I would be dead).
What was your biggest "close call"?
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