Closest you've been in a plane accident/incident

[Alot8]

How close have you been to a disaster or incident on a plane?
Mine was flying from Sydney to Nadi, Fiji when a big piece of cardboard flew into our engine but lucky we hadn't taken off yet but we were delayed and hour. Also when I was flying AA from Las Vegas to New York we nearly skidded off the runway as we had a bad crosswind landing.

[Cognizant]

The only incident I've had was when we were flying to Kona International (KOA) on ATA Airlines. I think the captain put on the emergency brakes, and that effectively resulted in one of the brakes catching on fire. It took the fire department 15/20 mins to extinguish it and then we taxied to the gate and went on with our vacation.

[Plane And Simple]

The closest thing for me was a hydraulic failure (PTU kicked in so not noticeable to passengers - pilots told me later) and hot brakes. Not something interesting, I know.

[Gumleaf]

Ummm, we were delayed a couple of hours or more on Jetstar once from Melbourne to Newcastle because of engine problems. Also when I was in the US, an AA flight from New York Kennedy to Los Angeles had problems with it's APU (I think that's what it was called), but we were delayed less then an hour and that's it really. Fortunately all my flights have been normal.

[Professor Moopicorn]

I flew on China Arilines. Nuf said.

Or maybe not. I Googled China Airlines and it came up with heaps of crashes and explosions. One time one of their planes litterly exploded just as it was sitting in the airport! Probably wasn't the wisest thing to be doing just before flying on those planes... Oh well, I survived. :)

[Malcolm Tucker]

Had an engine nearly fail about 30 seconds from landing in JFK about a month and a half ago. Probably loads more too, can't think of any off hand.