It's been a long time, late 80's I think. There was a bad storm that came across the atlanta airport and it shut down the entire system and caused delays nationwide. Maybe some of you remember this story.
There was an artical in flying magazine about this storm, and the flight I was on.
It was a valuejet 727 if memory serves. The flight was from ATL to MIA. After a very long time in line for departure. The captain came over the intercom and said that ATC was asking if someone would like to go up and take a look, or something to that effect.
I remember looking the flight crew over, as I always do, and try to speak as I board. I remember them both to be young guys.
We just happened to be parked at an intersection, I guess, so they worked their way out onto the runway and to the end for departure. The takeoff was quit scary. It was raining so hard I couldn't see the edge of the runway. By the time we reached about 500 feet, all hell broke loose. For about fifteen minutes, I thought that airplane was going to come apart.
There was not another word from the flight crew until we got to MIA. Then to top it all off, that was the hardest landing I've ever experenced. Something had to have broken after that one. Everybody, including myself screamed when it hit. I had a backache for a week. There were some very upset people leaving that plane. I felt so bad for the crew after such a good job dealing with the weather.
Most of the time the crew would stand at the cockpit door and thank everyone for flying with us, but not this time. They stayed in the cockpit with the door closed. Which was probably a good thing, but I wanted to shake their hand and hug their neck for a job well done.
I hope somebody else remembers this story in flying magazine.