lurkette

For the first time in a long time, I find myself afraid of flying. I have to go to San Francisco next week, Sept 9-12, and I'm weirded out by the proximity of my travel to September 11. I know it's just a date and security will be really high, but I still find myself breathing shallowly and on the edge of a panic attack.

Can anyone help provide some rational counterpoint to my deranged imaginings? I'm less worried about hijackers than about surface-to-air missiles, bombs, biological attacks on major cities like the one I'll be in, etc.

And I'm less worried about my safety for my sake than for what it would do to my mom and Ratbastid if I died. My mom would be a basket case, having just lost my brother, and I don't like to think about Ratbastid having to grieve me. Tears me up. I know I'm just borrowing trouble, worrying about something that hasn't happen and in reality is unlikely to happen, but I can't get it out of my head, it's so awful.

Help!

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Lebell

Fear is a terrible thing, especially when you know it is irrational.

The best thing I can tell you is to look at it logically.

Hundreds of THOUSANDS of flights take off and land every year without you EVER hearing of them.

Why?

Because NOTHING HAPPENED.

This verses how many times a year do you hear about what, a hundred or so people dying in a crash?

Now contrast this with an automobile.

Statistically, a person dies about every 13 minutes in the US from a car crash. But a car crash isn't THAT spectacular (unless it is a van full of kids that crosses the center lane.) No doubt that if you heard about every single auto fatality that happens daily (like you do with a plane crash), you would be afraid of driving.

So really, you are actually safer flying, than getting in your car and driving to the airport.

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(I hope this helps and good luck!)

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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TIO

lurkette, it doesn't sound like I'm going to convince you that the odds of any attack at all happening are really that low, so let's assume that an attack does happen.
First, let's get in the plane. It's possible that someone will blow the plane up, or that it will be shot down. But what's the point? Looking at it from a terrorist's point of view, you're only killing off a handful of people, and not in a really spectacular matter. Plane crashes, although rare, are quickly forgotten. No, if I was a terrorist with a surface-to-air missile, I think I'd have bigger fish to fry.
As for hijacking, I think we can rule that one out. People used to roll over in a hijacked plane, because they figured the plane would land, they'd sit out some negotiations, and they'd be released, so no point making trouble. But now that the possibility of becoming a terror attack is known, nobody's going to let the plane get hijacked. Anyone who makes the slightest attack on anyone (or quietly tries to ignite his foot) will find him (or her) self pretty quickly overpowered by a lot of pissed off passengers.

OK, so we've survived the flight. Now, let's survive San Fransisco. First of all, why would anyone launch a major attack on SF in the first place anyway? There are a lot of better targets...Berlin, London, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo...they're all major economic centres. If they're in California, even LA would be a better target than SF.
But let's suppose some crazy has chosen to attack SF. He (or she) has got three main options: a conventional bomb, a chemical/biological attack, or a nuclear device.
There's not a lot you can do about the conventional bomb, but let's be realistic. Even a truly huge conventional bomb has a pretty small blast radius. At most, it would destroy one or two buildings. If you're not in a government office, then, we can rule any harm coming to you from a conventional bomb out right away. If you are in a government office, you'll be pretty unlucky to be in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.
Now, the nuclear device: they make a big bang. But I can guaruntee you that there will not be a nuclear device in SF while you're there. Whatever you may have learned from 24, it is very, very hard to get your hands on 7kg of weapons grade uranium or plutonium and a nuclear technician willing to put the device together without anyone noticing. It's even harder to sneak that kind of stuff into the US. So if a terrorist organisation has the resources to do all that, they also have the resources to put it in whatever city they want. Would you waste a perfectly good nuke on SF when you can have NY, LA, Washington DC, or somewhere international?
And the idea of a terrible chemical/biological attack is all media hype. You're probably thinking of the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack in Tokyo. That killed 12 people, but a bomb the same size as the canisters holding the gas would have done more damage. Gases also do a lot of silly things. They don't float around in big green clouds, like in the movies; they spread out and follow the wind. Which means that even the best-planned gas attack could turn into a monumental fizzer with even the slightest change in the weather. And even if the weather's fine, cities are hot things. Air rises off cities pretty quickly, and it wouldn't take long for any gas that got released to work its way up to the upper atmosphere and stop being a problem. Chemical weapons are also ridiculously hard to transport, store and deploy, making them far from the weapon of choice for the discerning nutcase.

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Strewth

Rodney

Aside from the fact that the odds of anything happening are very small:

1) San Francisco? A major city? Maybe San Franciscans think so, but nobody else does. Nice place to eat a crab and enjoy the scenery, that's about it. (I say this as a former resident.) Also, when you think about Muslim terrorism targets, you're generally talking about very large metro areas with very large Muslim populations nearby in which terrorists can find shelter. The San Francisco Bay Area doesn't have that. Frankly, all terrorism targets so far have been on the Eastern Seaboard, where the population is thickest and the powerbrokers live. That's likely to continue to be the case. We're too spread-out out here to be a good terrorist target, except maybe in a very few small spots.

2) Al Quaeda and their ilk aren't doing surface-to-air missiles. They do bombs. Bombs are easy. They understand bombs. The hijacked airliners made sense to them because they could see them as big bombs.
SAMs are another matter, and much riskier to obtain and use than simple explosives.

3) No bomb is getting on your airliner. While I don't fly, numerous friends have talked about the absolute hassle of getting themselves and their luggage through security at the airport these days. Unless getting a bomb on a plane is easy, terrorists won't do it.

4) Biological attacks sound fearsome, but again these guys don't really have the technology; and there isn't some place where you can easily obtain this stuff. By the fact that there have been no real biological attacks, with the exception of some mystery envelopes, one can assume that there probably will be none. Like everybody else, terrorists do what's easy. Bioweapons are not easy.

I'm stressing easy/not easy because most terrorists are amateurs, and they know they are. So they like simple plans that are likely to work, not complicated ones that require skill and precise execution. The 9/11 plan was about as complex as they could actually handle; four guys had to get a little basic flight training. Everything else was low-tech. Now that America is alerted it would be very hard to hijack a plane again, or commandeer a truck or train of toxic material, or blow up a bridge, or anything. These things are being monitored. Doing them is... no longer easy.

anti fishstick

i have a newfound fear too and i've flown across the sea numerous times.. i'm not so much afraid of an attack but something technical going wrong.... i recently saw a documentary about that airplane that crashed in a neighbourhood about 2 months after 9/11... everyone thought it was probably terrorists but a closer investigation found that the tail of the plane actually *fell off* during flight where the rudder was. to me, that's scarier than finding out a terrorist did it.

i guess that's not very reassuring at *all* but that's why i'm afraid to fly...

__________________
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin

Blue

I can't give you a solid reassurance.

But, I can tell you some of my experiences.

Currently I am working on my private pilot license, so I have no real fear of flying(better not have lol)

Currently, for work, I fly all over the US, doing trade shows. I fly about twice a week on Southwest.

From the airlines standpoint: Security is at an all time high, and The chances of a Hijacking happening post 9/11 I would say are less than 2%

From a pilots standpoint: The equipment onboard todays airliners, is so advanced, it can land the plane all by itself. The pilots have nearly a full year of 24/7 flying experience(like 5000 hours)

I guess in summary, I'm not really of help.

All i can assure you is that the people are prepared for the worst, and when the worst happens, the best comes from it.

bundy

i heard an interesting theory as to why a friend of mine has specially arranged to fly on sept11 this year... he says that hardly anyone will be flying, and thus the chance of a free upgrade to business or first is on the cards.

fear of flying... VALIUM... best flight i ever took, was between Singapore and London... i had had a little bit of vodka, and then had a valium... knocked me out for exactly 10 hours...

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Ohayo!!!

wherearemypants

On something of a side not, isn't being afraid and changing your lifestyle exactly what the people who are doing this want?
Why change how we do things? That's just admitting defeat.

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-Boondock Saints

Rodney

Well at first you said terrorists were the cause of your fears, and I wrote a rather long and I hope reassuring note. Now you say it's airline reliability.

Rather than give you yet another pep talk, I'll say meditate; center yourself on your fears and try to understand them and and answer them; you know that there are zillions of flights per day and few crashes. Is there something else behind your fear? Dig deep.

anti fishstick

because the rudder fell off due to heavy turbulance and the pilots negligence to handle the situation. actually, the documentary said he handled it just like he was taught to.. but the new design in airplane tails with a lighter material than older models makes it a bit different. most planes have this new model... also, it sounds silly but last year, i dreamt i was flying in a plane with my mom. and the number 53 kept coming up. it felt like we were flying away from my dad [which is what would happen bcos he never flies with us..] and there was turbulance... i don't remember the mood of the dream. it was kind of scary but then my deceased grandma kept telling me it was alright.. i guess it just kind of scares me that i could 'predict' something in a dream.

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And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin

lurkette

I said terrorists - AntiFishstick wrote the passage you quoted.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

yournamehere

True words.

It is impossible to dispel an irrational fear through logical thought.

Sometimes, <b>Lurkette</b>, you've just got to take a deep breath, say "Fuck it!", and enjoy the ride - wherever it takes you.

__________________
If you want to avoid 95% of internet spelling errors:
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It won't hurt your fashion sense, either.

GoldenOuroboros

TIO, sounds like you have put alot of thought into this..

ok ok..
Everytime I get on a plane I worry if it'll make it to it's destination.. so I'm sure you're not the only one worried about anything happening lurkette

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TIO

GoldenOuroboros, I've written a bit on the topic before, because it really annoys me, and scares me a little bit, how much people concentrate on things that aren't really big threats (terrorism), and don't worry about the things that actually could be big trouble, that we can do something about (asteroids, climate change).

(And then there's the very real threats we can't do anything about...I'm glad to live a nice long way from Yosemite)

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Strewth

docbungle

Flying scares the crap out of me. Not because of terrorists or anything like that, but simply because the damn plane might go down for some unknown reason. Mechanical error, pilot error, whatever.

Every time I get on a plane, I have to mentally prepare myself for death, which, funny as it may sound, is a somewhat taxing experience. Once I accept the fact that I may very well die on this flight, then I seem to do ok.

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Bad Luck City

Mephisto2

Flying gives me the willies, even though I have to do it a lot for work. Having said that, the more you fly in a certain period of time, the less scary it gets.

Being afraid of hijacks or terrorist attacks is just plain silly.

1) the chances of it happening (to you) are so low as to be negligable.
2) by being scared (or "terrorized") you are succumbing to exactly what your enemies want.

It's MUCH more appropriate to fear that the big metal bird will fall out of the sky...


Mr Mephisto

yournamehere

Not exactly (but I like the way you think).

Carried to two decimal places, the average fatality rate per 100,000 hours flown by large-transport commercial aircraft since 1992 is 0.00. Of course we know that, however scarce they are - accidents happen. The Excel sheet on which I viewed this information only carried numbers to two decimal places.

If carried to three decimal places, the largest it could be is 0.004 per 100,000, That works out to a worst-case percentage rate of 1 fatality per 25 million hours flown. I doubt the flight to San Francisco takes that long (unless it's on America West, of course )

Even the most seasoned business travelers average less than 500 hours per year in the air - that gives them a fifty-thousand year cushion.

Relax - have some peanuts.

__________________
If you want to avoid 95% of internet spelling errors:
"If your ridiculous pants are too loose, you're definitely going to lose them. Tell your two loser friends over there that they're going to lose theirs, too."
It won't hurt your fashion sense, either.

Cynthetiq

that wasn't far from Ground Zero... I was in DC at the time... and it was very freaky...

after many years of flying and seeing numerous planes crash in my lifetime... it's not like a car accident...

i get anxious when flying now, happened after TWA 800. 9/11 kicked it up many notches, thank you mr. bin laden.

thank goodness for doctors and meds

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