1. Flying out of Bolivia's El Alto
El Alto is the highest altitude international airport in the world. We were on a tiny plane owned by Aerocon, a now-defunct airline with a questionable safety record (eight Aerocon passengers had died in a crash in 2011), my nerves were understandably shaky.
After two attempts to take off — the second coming after the pilot admitted over the PA that the plane was having technical difficulties — we disembarked and faced an overnight delay. Feeling uneasy about the whole incident, we decided to book on another airline instead. I'm glad we did; four months later, another Aerocon plane crashed in northern Bolivia, killing eight more people. — Stephanie Holmes
2. Landing gear woes
We were immigrating to New Zealand in 1972. It was my first time in a plane. I had already been traumatised before take-off by the screams of a mother when I reclined my seat on top of her newborn baby. We were on one of many hops across the world — including being unloaded into a tent in the desert at Damascus with machine-gun toting guards in the middle of the Arab Israeli conflict, and watching native hunters with blowpipes in the long grass by the airstrip in Rangoon. This time it was from Manila to Brisbane and when we reached Brisbane airport (which looked like an outback cattle station) we weren't allowed to land because the undercarriage wasn't going to come down — apparently. We had to fly on to Sydney and when we got there had to circle the airfield again and again to use up the fuel while fire engines were lined up below us. Meanwhile, the cabin crew were handing out booze like it was going out of fashion, people were vomiting, crying and saying their rosaries. My dad said later he thought he had brought us all thousands of miles to die ... But we got L&P for the first time and the end was absolutely fine — a perfect landing and a great cheer from the passengers, plus more booze and more L&P. Apparently the undercarriage light was faulty, not the undercarriage itself. — Isobel Marriner
