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el_presidente
@jj72
Years ago, early 90’s in fact, I flew from Dublin to Farranfore in Co Kerry. It was a Fokker F27, a high-wing twin turboprop, a decent enough aircraft. The weather was grim, wet and windy. We approached Kerry and it got much worse with a big storm coming in from the Atlantic. High-wing aircraft tend to swing about a bit like a pendulum in gusty conditions and we were going all over the place. We came into land, being buffeted like crazy, and about 100 feet up from landing the pilot bailed out and went around. We had another go but the same result. The pilot came over the radio and said that we were being diverted to Shannon. We got most of the way there to be told that Shannon had just closed due to the weather. We turned back and aimed for Cork, and we were halfway to Cork when that was closed too. So we had to turn back to Kerry. The storm was really bad at this point, we were being buffeted all over the place, people were vomiting, crying, kids screaming, really grim. I was an aircraft mechanic and even I was getting a bit concerned. Anyway, we made an approach to Kerry and again the pilot bailed out. The pilot came over the radio and explained that we were running low on fuel, and we would have to land at the next attempt, no matter what. We all had to go through the crash routine and brace ourselves, lean forward, hands over the head, the lot. People were praying. We came in fast to lessen the effect of possible wind shear, and I don’t know what height we were at when the pilot slammed it down, but we hit the runway like a airdropped cathedral. I’ve never experienced such a violent landing, the crash was incredible; lockers burst open, trolleys jumped six feet in the air as did the passengers. We didn’t even bounce, the crew stuck it down that hard. We came to a halt at the end of the runway with no power, and we had to be towed back to the apron. People were crying, the plane stank of vomit, shit, everything. How the undercarriage legs didn’t end up poking out of the top of the wings I’ll never know, or perhaps they did.
The aircraft was damaged almost beyond repair, and was out of service for some 8 months. I knew several people on that flight who never flew again after that. I flew back to London a couple of weeks later on a 737 and never flew in an F27 again.