abaya

Are you afraid of flying? Maybe not even in a paralyzing sense, but maybe you get a little worried during takeoff, turbulence, and landing? Worst-case scenarios run through your head?

I've been reading the news about this Spanair crash, right after landing, that happened yesterday in Madrid, Spain. It freaks me out a little bit more than the usual air crash. We were just there, flying on a budget airline between Bilbao and Barcelona--it certainly could have happened to us. The Madrid crash happened at the exact moment in a flight when I feel the most anxiety, and usually hold on to ktsp's hand and reassure myself, "It won't happen to us, it won't happen to us..."

It's been a couple of years since I flew anywhere without him, actually (due to living in Iceland)--and man, I used to be an old hand at flying alone. My first plane trip was before I could walk, and I flew 18-hour international flights to Thailand as a kid, and loved every minute of them. I used to LOVE flying, period... probably up until my mid-20s, I would say.

I had a little more trepidation after 9/11, but nothing severe. In 2005, I flew from coast to coast in the US 7 times, and also flew to Zambia and Iceland from the US--I don't remember feeling particularly alarmed about those flights, either. It was time to read, relax, watch movies, get some work done, and generally chill.

But in the last few years, I have become close to agitated when flying, especially during those first and last minutes of a flight. Usually, I can handle turbulence--but mentally, my mind is racing during those other times.

Every time I hear another news story about a flight (even a small plane) going down during those times, it adds to my anxiety a little bit more. People who just got married, leaving on their honeymoon, when they die in a plane crash. These 150 people flying to the Canary Islands for vacation, something Europeans do every day, and dying just a moment after lift-off. Charred bodies everywhere, 20 children. What were their last moments like? What kind of inescapable terror did they experience?

I dread having to go through this thought process when I fly. I almost feel like I'm gambling with my life every time I step on a plane, these days. I dislike this feeling, especially since I used to adore flying whenever I got the chance. It was one of my favorite things to sit back and enjoy... the power of lift-off, the excitement of touching down, being curled up in a window seat and taking pictures of all the world below me... and I just don't enjoy these things very much anymore. I hold ktsp's hand, and try to relax, and busy my mind until it's all over.

Has anyone else had an increase in your fear of flying, as you have gotten older? Or have you always been afraid of flying, or just never?

EDIT: Upon glancing at the "Divine intervention" thread, I also think that my fear of flying has increased as my religious faith decreased. I used to pray and feel safe/comforted at the beginning of a flight--now, I don't believe anything special is there to save me from harm. I am sure there are plenty of faithful people who have been killed in plane crashes. It's a mechanical failure. It happens, randomly and accidentally, and people die. There is no meaning behind it, nor is there any way of preventing it with prayer. This disturbs me at some level that I cannot express, even though I know it's true.

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Ayashe

The only times I have ever been nervous on a flight is when flying in the smaller planes, out of tiny little airports. You know, the ones where you can see the prop right outside of your window. I will never forget the first time I rode in one of those, sitting looking out the window and (not knowing a thing about planes) seeing only one of the props spinning. Why... oh my god we are all going to die. Now mind you this experience was compounded by three separate delays. Flying just outside of a military base I am sure had something to do with two of them. The other delay was a good two hour mechanical delay having to do with a luggage compartment. It was just not my flight.

Outside of that issue, I have had no other fears flying.

yellowmac

Sure, I get a bit anxious and nervous in the days and hours leading up to a flight. But it's usually nothing paralyzing. Usually I calm myself by repeating over and over in my head that I'll have a better chance of dying on the car ride to the airport than I will during the airplane flight itself. It is, after all, statistically the safest form of transportation, right?

So yeah, I rationalize my small fear by telling myself that it's the media's coverage of airplane crashes that drives this anxiety in me. Just being calm, trying to focus my attention on something else while flying, or just telling myself that thousands and thousands of flights happen every single day without any incident does the trick.

Overall, I'm typically just fine. I think it's really more of something you have to get used to, and it's something you get over very quickly the more you have to fly. Not many business travelers have fears of flying, after all.

Halx

Its funny that the older I get, the less confident in flying I get. I look at my dad and how he is too afraid to fly - he won't come out to see me in New York. I wonder if I'll ever get to that point. I used to be solid. Now, I get a little wary when landing. Its not nearly as bad as other people have it, and it doesn't even hit until the last part of the flight, but I never used to care. Landing used to be my second favorite part.

I guess it could be the smaller planes now. With JetBlue being my preferred airline, the planes are about 30% smaller than what I was used to flying as a kid. They shake more. You can feel it when they bank. I think of dying a lot more.

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Vigilante

I don't have too much of a fear of flying. I have felt it coming on, but I quickly shut it down and relaxed. Sure some turbulence has hit and made me jump, but not every time. I love watching the plane leave the runway and come back in though, what a feeling. I always get a window seat for that reason. Wish my car could do that.

As far as death goes... meh, it's gonna happen sometime.

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abaya

Weird thing is, I don't have any fear during the days/hours before the flight. No fear at all. It's only when I'm finally on the plane, and once the plane is accelerating into lift-off, that I start to feel the anxiety. And yeah, I do that too, over and over again until the flight stabilizes at 30,000 ft, and then I'm relaxed until the landing. But I never used to have to do this. I never even thought about that crap... just loved flying, period.Well, again, that's why it's so weird for me. I have been flying for my entire life--not a year has gone by when I have not been on an airplane at least a couple of times, and usually it's more like 6-10 long-distance flights a year. So it's definitely not anything new--and yet, I am less used to it now than I used to be. Right, this is exactly what I am talking about. The older I am, the more I see that a mechanical failure could happen at any time, and the more anxious I feel. Again, it's nothing like a paralyzing fear that I see in some of my relatives (who have to take sleeping pills to "survive" a flight), but it's more fear than I am used to feeling. I never used to think about dying so much--but it occupies my thoughts pretty often these days.

It unnerves me that I feel this way about something that used to come so easily to me.

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PonyPotato

I'm not afraid of flying, for the most part. It's no more dangerous than getting in my car and commuting 30 miles to work every morning, really. What DOES make me nervous about flying is that my dad gets nervous about it.. and he works for GE building jet engines.

Turbulence doesn't help, though.

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Cynthetiq

My heart sunk when I read the Madrid crash yesterday. We were on that flight a couple years ago when we flew to Gran Canaria. We flew it most recently this past December to Ibiza.

I'm not afraid of flying. I'm afraid of take-offs and landings. My anxiety is so great up to the point, that when take offs happen I'm generally asleep from how stressed I've been for the previous 24 hours.

Few airplanes just fall right out of the sky as they fly from point A to point B. They do seem to however have issues when taking off and landing.

ValuJet Airlines Flight 592 into the everglades in Florida gets my attention but doesn't really make me think too much about it.

But I know the exact moment I started to have my fear of take offs and landings... it was TWA flight 800 that really shook me up. My g/f and I were going on a trip the following day flying out to either LA or Florida (not quite sure which.) Watching the flames on the water was really eerie. Every crash aftwards, chips away at my confidence in flying.

9/11 hijackings has it's own issues, but the added security today doesn't qualm the fears I already have of mechanical issues and errors that cause planes to catostrophically fail.

After 9/11 American Airlines Flight 587, where the tail was ripped off after take off from JFK pushed it even further down for me. We were in Washington DC at the time having just driving down to visit friends.

It's irrational to think or consider, since I don't worry about it in comparison to driving, but in some ways I do consider driving to be more and more dangerous as I get older the more accidents I see and hear about.

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World's King

Doesn't bother me in the slightest. Mainly cause I'm drunk.



I had a 7am flight a few years ago. I got to Denver International Airport as soon as the smoking lounge/bar was opening. Eight people sat at the bar. I was only one that didn't order coffee. I downed a couple double Screwdrivers. Got on the plane. When the beverage cart came around I ordered another Screwdriver. The flight attendant looked at me and said, "Sir, it's only 7am." And I said. "It's okay. I've already had a couple." She gave it to me. But then came back later and gave me a bottle of water and a cup of coffee.

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abaya

I guess that's a more accurate statement about me, too.That was the one about the newlywed couple going on their honeymoon, not to mention everyone else on the plane. It shook me up pretty badly.I didn't have a defining moment (well, maybe it was the ValuJet crash?) of becoming afraid of takeoffs/landings... it's just developed pretty quickly over the last few years, and every single news announcement about a plane crash sends my anxiety level just one notch higher on the next flight I take. Great, living on an island in the North Atlantic where the only way out is on a plane, eh?

I'm also a bit worried about a Spanish friend of mine who was supposed to be moving to the Canary Islands (from northern Spain) as a teacher this month or next. I don't know when he was going to leave, but I sent him an e-mail to see if he was okay. No reply yet. I also sent a text message, which was at least received... so hopefully that's a good sign. I hate knowing when people might be flying in those areas, when this shit happens. And I hate knowing that those 150 people died in such terror, and that it could happen to me. Probably never will, but it still could. You just never know when your number is gonna be up.
-----Added 21/8/2008 at 01 : 39 : 01-----
So what are you gonna do now that you're no longer drinking?

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World's King

I started again.

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abaya

Oh, okay.

/awkward silence

Well, maybe I should start getting drunk before boarding planes, in my near future. I figured sleep-deprivation was a good approach (similar to Cyn's, though my lack of sleep is due to packing at the last minute, not anxiety), but a shot of booze might help, lol.

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World's King

I don't suggest drinking for everyone.



Altitude can really mess with people.

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Dammitall

On a flight back from Florida in April, our flight hit some nasty turbulence (the worst of any I have experienced) during its initial descent. The plane shook around a good bit and hit one or two sudden vertical drops. Through most of it, one of the flight attendants was squatting in the aisle with both hands on the armrests on either side of her to stabilize herself. A little boy sitting in the row in front of me screamed twice, and I was just about shitting my pants. I was listening to music and tried to close my eyes and block out my fear, but nothing helped until we finally got through it.

That was, by far, my worst flying experience; none of my previous flights in puddlejumpers even came close. Turbulence has always made me uneasy, much more than taking off or landing, but this particular flight was definitely terrifying for me.

And I do find myself feeling much more uncomfortable flying than I did when I was younger.

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abaya

So this is insane. I just got a text message back from my friend: he said that he arrived in Tenerife (in the Canary Islands), from Spain, TODAY. He took a ferry to get there... I don't know what day he left. Otherwise, he just might well have been on that flight. It's pretty unbelievable.

This is like when my aunt and uncle were flying out of New York on 9/10/01... and I didn't know exactly which date they were flying on, and was so bloody relieved to hear that they flew a day earlier. And yet so very sad about the families who were not so lucky.

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LoganSnake

We flew to NYC last Spring. I was fine at take off and landing. Although I will be honest and say that a hint of worry was there at take off as everything gets smaller and smaller and you realize that you're in a metal tube some 30,000 feet above anything. Other than that, I was more preoccupied with hating the engine noise.

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ngdawg

Since I didn't take my first flight until I was in my late 40's, I now have the "if it happens, oh well" attitude.
That's not to say I wasn't a total nervous wreck leading up to it-so much so that one of my friends shared his Valium, which he takes for flying. And, on that first flight (an Embraer commuter jet, no less), the landing was horrid because we arrived early, started the approach but they weren't ready for us, so we went back up. Beibg a flight virgin, I was not happy with that going up and down business.
But I found that, for the most part, I like flying. I like take-off best, then I keep my camera with me and shoot clouds to pass the time or take a nap while cruising.

snowy

That's the attitude I have, though I'm only 26.

Additionally, I'm more likely to get in a car crash or a bike crash than a plane crash. It's a gamble I'm willing to take to get to where I need to go. But I don't fly much, simply because most of the places I need to go to are better reached by train. And going by train is a much more pleasant experience.

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abaya

I had that attitude for the first 25 years of my life. I seriously don't know what's going on... quarter-life flying crisis?? Yeah, unfortunately that's never been an option for me, with both my international family/husband/work, as well as moving across the country for grad school in the US. Taking a train/boat between any of the places that I traveled to/from regularly would be completely and totally insane, both in terms of time and money. There is really no way around flying, for me... a fact which is beginning to bother me much more these days.

I just heard again from my Spaniard friend, who said that he most likely would have flown to the Canary Islands, if he wasn't transporting his car and motorbike on the ferry (since he's moving there long-term). It's very eery, the coincidence of dates.

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Sion

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hamski

I was fine until i flew from Iceland to Scotland and it was terrifying.Vertical drops and that stuff.I was thinking it was the pilots first day since graduating from pilot school.Never been the same.A few beers definitely does wonders i have noticed.My girl-friend is worse,i was re-assuring her last month in Tenerife that these are perfect flying conditions in that part of the world.Load of crap that turned out to be.Must've been horrific for those poor people yesterday.

Jinn

I've loved planes since I exitted the womb, and have even flown them myself.

The only time I've been scared was when I was flying a Cessna into a strong headwind and I rolled off a little to fast.. the sense of weightless and "oh shit, I'm going to stall 5 feet off the runway" was brief, but damn did it make me check myself.

I've felt far more unsafe riding in a car with female drivers than I ever have in a plane.

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ngdawg

Ths reminds me of when my dad's cousin bought this book thinking it would help with her fear of airplanes

snowy

That must've been quite the surprise...though perhaps the book itself is distracting enough that if one read it whilst flying they might not notice that the plane was crashing.

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jorgelito

I am not afraid of flying. I am terrified of driving or rather, being in cars. Driving is one of the leading killers in our country (USA). I'm surprised so many people have an irrational fear of flying but don't hesitate getting into cars. Drowning in pools is more common than death by flying.

I think you should examine the underlying fear of flying. Is it because you don't have control? That is one of the most common reasons for fear of flying especially for alpha males. Is it the unknown? The "what ifs" of flying? Weather conditions, size of plane, mechanical integrity all contribute to an illusion of safety or lack thereof. Maybe the "solitude" of being in a plane and all that idle time causes a person to think and the mind wanders. So the anxiety and stress of real life become manifest as a fear of flying. I don't know, but it's possible.

Secondly, if faith (prayer) was a source of comfort before, but no longer due to change in faith, then perhaps that is more of a cause to examine than an actual fear of flying. That is if the act of flying prompts on to rexamine or think of faith, then perhaps there needs to be some soul searching there.

Thirdly, with regards to the accidents and "close-calls", that is a great example of why one should contact their family members. During 9/11, I had two family members on two separate flights on the same routes and same airlines as the ones involved in that tragedy. Thank God they were fine and I sure did appreciate the phone call letting me know they were safe.

Best way to "get over" your fear: confront it. Face it and take control of it. You will be pleasantly surprised. We can open up another thread for confronting your fear if you'd like, COuld be illuminating and helpful.

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abaya

Clearly, you've never ridden with me in the driver's seat. (And no, that is not a euphemism, lol.) Driving is my passion, and I take great pride in being a damn good driver. There are few things that I feel as confident in as I do in my driving. Weird, eh? Especially considering the statistics--and yet, it's because I'm the one in control. It so affects me that when someone else is driving a car (where I am a passenger), I very often become nauseous after a short time. The nausea goes away immediately if I ask to drive the car for a while, since I'm back in control again.

I think that is the major fear behind the airplane thing. As I've grown up, I've realized more and more how totally out of control it is to fly around in a metal tube in the sky, trusting a couple of people up front (and faceless mechanics on the ground) with my life and the manner of my death. There was a time when I loved just trusting those people to get me from point A to point B... not much anymore.

At the same time, I would love to become a pilot myself and take flying lessons, because then it would put me in control. It is not necessarily a fear of the action itself--flying--but the fear of someone else fucking it up and ending my life as a result of doing something stupid and preventable. I never have the same fears about driving, even though it's far more likely.

As for confronting it: Well Jorge, I don't do anything to avoid flying. I keep right on buying the tickets, stepping onto planes, and doing what I have always done. Fear has almost never stopped me from doing anything--in fact, it usually pushes me to keep right on doing it, because I dislike irrationality and the fact that it might keep me from missing out on something for a stupid reason. So I do it anyway. But the anxiety is still there--and what bothers me isn't that I am afraid, but that I was not afraid for 25 years of flying, and it has become more of an issue in recent years. My anxiety level in general has increased in recent years, and I think it is probably all related, somehow.

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jorgelito

You know, it's funny Abaya, I get carsick when I'M the one driving too LOL: go figure! But ultimately, we (or most people) are fine with driving precisely because they are in control and at the very least, feel they have a chance to avoid/prevent/defense against potential accidents. We're always convinced it's the other guy who's a crazy driver, not us. Contrast with flying, it's pretty much a one shot deal: most plane accidents you don't walk away from and if something happens, it's COMPLETELY outside your control. There's no "Look out!", no swerving, no slowing down, no nuthin' generally speaking when it comes to plane accidents. So even though air travel is very safe, so much more than driving, the few accidents are so gruesome and shocking, we are psychologically inclined to fear it or have anxiety over it.

I think Abaya you may be on to something as we get older we may think of these things more or at least, mortality in general. Strapped in ready for take off, we may think, oh boy, is this it? I hope those union workers were thorough in the pre flight check up. Plus all the sounds of banging, whirring, clicking latching and we can't really see what's going on just adds to the anxiety.

There are other aspects too for some people I would imagine. Issues of faith, latent anxieties long buried or repressed, and these should be explored in a healthy productive manner.

While you may still fly on, there is still the unresolved issue of the fear. It's that anxiety that should be explored and hopefully "resolved" so that you may once again enjoy flying.

Just my $.02

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NoSoup

Interestingly, I find myself in the same boat as a lot of folks, it seems.

As I grow older my fear of flying has steadily increased. I used to fly all the time without any issues, but the last year or so has been rough on me.

I've probably taken off and landed some 20 times in the last year, and instead of it getting easier, it just gets harder and harder. Granted, I've had not one - not even two, but three hair raising flights this year, which certainly doesn't help, but I definately feel anxiety about the flight as soon as I get to the airport.

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abaya

Yup, and ktsp has told me this very succinctly (when we were discussing this once)--if something goes bad, it's REALLY bad. There's no way out of it. And I am the type of person who is always thinking of a way "out" of things--in case of emergency, worst-case scenario, etc. I believe that I would be a survivor in most traumatic situations, but a plane wreck is one where I am not assured of my own personal ability to get out of a shitty situation. That bothers me. Yup. Things I never noticed, when I was younger. And I focus in on those things when they are happening--it really ups my anxiety level, when the engine is too loud, or there's a strange smell in the air (gas--which I discovered is a normal thing, after asking about it once)--and I have learned to mentally talk myself down from it, as someone else said earlier here. You know I'm all for counseling, and I've done a LOT of it (though not since living in Iceland)--but honestly, I don't think this is about the faith or about repressed anxieties.

I think it's me just plain getting older and more conscious of the various ways that I could die, and me not wanting Death By Plane Crash to be my exit from this world. A control issue, far and above anything else, I would say. I am not afraid of death, per se... but a catastrophic and extremely terror-filled death, yes. I am much more conscious of that now than I ever have been before. I think a lot about bad news, in general--how preventable things could be, or how random and unfair they are--and how no one ever deserves to die in those ways, and yet they still went through it, they are still dead, and nothing can be done about it now.

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Cernunnos

I don't fear the flight itself, despite having moderate acrophobia. Taking off and landing do make me somewhat uncomfortable, but I am actually more tense while driving on the ground during a heavy rainstorm.

The_Dunedan

My problems with air travel are two.

1: I am an aviation buff. I've been mad for airplanes since before I could walk. Airplanes, like guns, are kinda my "thing." This means I know lots of stuff about them, including -exactly- what can go wrong (just about anything) and -exactly- what my chances are of surviving it if it does (damn near nothin'). This makes takeoffs and landings (the most likely time for a catastrophic failure and with the least margin for error...hello ground!) a hair-raising time, at least for me.

2: When it comes to vehicles, I'm a control freak. I -hate- being a passenger if I have a choice. Bluntly put, the world is full of idiots and most of them drive. I don't trust -any- other driver on the road not to be a total numbnuts, and I don't completely trust anyone other than myself to be able to dodge them if they -are- a total numbnuts. Drivers in my area (Appalachian Mtns) routinely come flying around turns entirely in the oncoming lane because "it lets you see further" around a blind turn. You read that correctly, these assholes will come around a twisty-turny blind turn in the middle of the mountains in the wrong lane, on purpose. I shudder at the thought of being killed as a passenger because my driver couldn't dodge such a waterhead, and the sure knowledge that somewhere up there someone of similar intelligence and common sense is flying for Delta does nothing for my confidence in air travel.


I love flying in light planes. But airliners? I'll take the boat, the horse, or the ten-toe express.

dlish

as funny as it sounds.. i have an anxiety of flying

ironically im in Qatar airport waiting for my flight home

can i do anything about it? no..but it wont stop me from doing what i want.

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JustJess

I just get uncomfortable because I get motion sick. So I'm too busy trying not to puke on my shoes to worry much about dying. We've been on a few flights that have been rocky and crazy, and those were scary - inducing much hand-holding and "just in case X happens, I need to tell you I love you!" sorts of things, but otherwise, I just don't get that stressed out. I think it's my personality type - I am certainly a control freak in many ways, but if it's out of my control, I just sort of accept that. E.g. I'm late. I've done everything I can do to get there on time, and now there's traffic. I can't fix it, and there's no point freaking out. It is what it is. I sort of try to zen out about it. Not always successfully, but mostly I just let things go. And on an airplane, I'm not in control of anything. Where I sit, how loud it is, the flying skills of the pilots, the crappiness of the food (when there was food, that is)... it's out of my hands. No point in getting upset, it's just a waste of energy!

I do think there's a simple explanation for why most of the posts mention getting more frightened of flying as they get older... The young are actually not mentally developed enough to fully appreciate the dangers of their activities. Seriously, it's something we learned in our pediatrics/psych courses. Until about our mid-20's, most of us haven't developed that sense of danger about our persons. Why do you think car insurance is so expensive until you're 25? Because statistically, people are crazier and more reckless until about that age. Married people get cheaper car insurance than single people. Again, a marker of a certain mindset about life. Really, checking into actuarial statistics for insurance would probably be pretty illuminating about how people live, and markers for certain types of risky behavior. Because most of that is simply observing and analyzing who does what and when and how likely it is that it will happen.

So anyway, my point: as we get older, we develop the mental capacity to appreciate our risk in a way that we didn't have in our younger years. Plus your being a self-acknowledged control freak... and we have ourselves some increasing anxieties about flying!

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Grasshopper Green

I've never liked flying. I can't put my finger on why - it's always made me nervous. Like Jess mentioned above, I've been on several scary flights, but the non-scary ones bother me as well. My fear has never stopped me from flying though, just ticket prices

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Formerly Medusa

Redjake

I didn't fly for the first time until I was 23, and it scared the living hell out of me. From now on, I am only flying if I absolutely have to. I was in something called a "puddle jumper" and it was like a jet-powered 1991 Chevrolet Cavalier basically. Felt like it was going to fall apart. Extremely uncomfortable, I got motion sickness, the pilot was in training and fucked up a lot, just a bad experience. It felt like we as human beings were meddling with things of that which we are amateurs with. Even though thousands of flights occur every day with no problems.


The deal with me is that if a plane crashes, you are basically fucked. Yeah, the chances are like being struck by lightning, but if it happens, you're fucked. In a car, you can crash with a pretty high probability, but at least you have a good chance at surviving. If you crash in a plane you are just in bad news bears territory.

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Off the record, on the q.t., and very hush-hush.

Grasshopper Green

You know, I think this probably has something to do with my anxiety, as well.

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"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings; steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"

Formerly Medusa

Sugar&Spice

Every year I get more nervous about flying. I would like to avoid it completely if I could. I have decided that it basically comes down to having no control. I'll usually start to be nervous about 5 days before the flight and I sleep only a few hours the night before. Earlier this year my doctor gave me some Valium and that helped a lot. On one flight, after two valiums and two vodka crans, I told my boyfriend that I thought I would like to be a flight attendant. I really don't have the option of driving as I live in Alaska so I just keep some valium on hand.

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-Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

abaya

It's good to know that I'm not alone with this fear.

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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Spartanx9

I don't have a huge fear of flying, its more of being uncomfortable of the take off.

First time I flew, i was a bit scared, especially doing it at a young age, but now I'm okay with them, allows me to catch up on sleep and think about things that I'm either stressed about or need to worry (Being stuck in the air without much to do kinda gives you that forced time).