I've flown a lot the last 15 years or so, including long flights to China and Korea, but one trip in November, 2009 stands out for me: it made me stop flying for about 6 months.
On my way from Lugano, Switzerland to Frankfurt for a conference, I had to take two flights: Lugano to Zurich and then Zurich to Frankfurt. It was medium bad weather over most of Western Europe, with rain and wind, but most flights were still leaving more or less on time.
The 30 minute flight to Zurich was... interesting; constant bouncing around and a landing that was so hard I was sure that the landing gear must be damaged. We were all a bit shaken.
The 1 hour flight to Frankfurt was more of the same; turbulence like I had never experienced before, in a small Avro RJ-100. As we approached Frankfurt and prepared to make the turn to line up for landing, we could see out the windows that a huge, dark mass of clouds covered the city and airport and was dumping rain. And then we turned right towards it.
As we neared and descended, the small jet was bouncing around like a ping-pong ball in an air tunnel and we were all white-knuckling it. I kept expecting the pilot to turn off; we obviously couldn't land in this kind of wind. But we kept descending.
I'm not sure how high the plane was when it happened, but I could see a terminal building just ahead out my window and it looked large. And then the jet suddenly tipped over, the right wing rising high, and we started slipping sideways to the left... straight at the terminal.
How the pilot recovered is beyond me, but he did... and we basically flew sideways over the terminal building, so close that I could see a woman in a red coat having coffee and staring at us as we went over. I'm pretty sure she could hear all of us screaming as we swept past. I don't think I have ever been that scared or that certain I was going to die.
The pilot got us straightened out and we made a wide turn to come back. On the second try, the winds had miraculously slowed for a time and we landed smoothly. On the return journey, I ditched my plane tickets and took the train, preferring the 6-7 hour ride. And I refused to set foot on a plane for 6 months afterwards.