davidc wrote:.... the pilot aborted our first takeoff just as we started accelerating to investigate a technical issue
You can certainly get some "interesting" moments on planes. In 1974 I flew with Turkish Airlines which had already experienced two major crashes* that year (including the disaster over Paris) on one of their remaining DC-10s. The pilot aborted the first approach into Istanbul airport, which was a bit worrying i the circumstances.
Coming back from Edinburgh on one occasion, it required three attempts to land at London City Airport. The runway there is quite short, so wind direction is a significant factor. While we were on the first descent, the pilot decided that a change in the wind meant that he needed to approach from the opposite direction. The second time we were literally just a few feet above the runway when he revved the engines and started climbing as he had decided that a tail wind could push us beyond the end of the tarmac into the dock. He eventually put the plane down with a bit of a bump, but if we had not landed that time it was going to be a diversion to Southend for us.
* The airline went on to have a third fatal crash on an internal flight later in the year after I had returned home. I had also taken an internal flight with them on the same type of plane and I sometimes wonder if that was the actual aircraft which crashed.
