I was recently 4 hours into a flight from Chicago to Germany on a large double-decker Airbus when I started smelling smoke on the plane.
Suddenly I see flight attendants running to the back of the plane with fire extinguishers. Other flight attendants are running to the front of the plane with bottles of liquor.
The captain comes over the intercom: "Flight attendants, prepare for emergency landing"
Over the next 5 minutes I watch how different people react to the scenario. Some people grab hands, some start to pray, some people just close their eyes. Others start demanding up-to-the-minute information about our situation.
Without warning, we hit the ground. In a made-for-the-movies moment, the entire plane erupts in applause.
The rest of my trip I was a little nervous getting back on planes. However, the one thing that helped me keep things in perspective was something the flight-attendant said during our emergency landing:
"I have a husband in Germany. I don't want to die either. We're doing everything we can."
Simple and rational. It always works for me too.
FYI, the smoke turned out to be a coffee maker--and after several hours stuck on the tarmac in Newfoundland, we were on our way again.
Ugh, I know exactly how that guy feels. I hate flying with an abiding passion (indeed, I view their 30 day trip as about as much fun as hitting myself in the nuts with a hammer over the course of a month). It is completely and totally irrational, but there's not much to be done about it. Drinking helps, some, but they don't serve drinks during takeoff, which is the worst part (I usually manage to relax a bit after about a half an hour of total panic).
I don't hate "flying". I went halfway to getting a pilot's license just because I've always wanted to learn how to fly (for real, not in simulators).
It's not the flying that makes me hate flying on airliners; it's being locked up in a cramped, uncomfortable, jetlag-inducing space that makes me feel like a pig on a CAFO, where I always emerge to my destination with a splitting headache due to an old neck injury.
I don't generally have claustrophobia, but I'm sure that also has something to do with people's feelings about flying on airliners.
I dont mind flying at all - but sometimes the claustrophobia hits me and I immediately have a sudden vision of wrenching open the door and falling thousands of feet.
> about as much fun as hitting myself in the nuts with a hammer over the course of a month
Actually having been hit in the nuts by a cricket bowling machine (I.e. a baseball * 1.3 weight at about 50 miles/hour), I can tell you that every other concern seems petty in comparison for the 20 or so minutes it takes to get ones senses back. But I'm not about to recommend it as therapy.
There is an important parallel between the fear of flying and the fear of striking out on your own. There are so many things that are beyond your control, and taking-off (in either context) is the riskiest part.
I never cease to be amazed at the first moment when an airplane feels like a kite in the wind right after takeoff.
No, there is no parallel at all, at least in my experience. Fear of striking out on your own is something that everyone should have a little of - it's healthy. But my fear of flying/heights is completely irrational and very strong.
I got a lot less comfortable flying after working in engineering for a major US airliner. I participated in an investigation as to why an engine suffered a catastrophic failure. The investigation was indecisive, the most likely conclusion being some mistake made in maintenance. There are still plenty of Boeing 757s with Rolls Royce engines flying so I don't think this particular event was indicative of an actual flaw with the engine.
Rather, what makes me uncomfortable, is that sometimes very important parts of the plane blow up and the engineers can't figure out why. But hey, at least there are two or four engines and three or more power supplies.
The last two flights I took, there was something physically wrong with the plane. The first of which occurred after takeoff (the landing gear would not retract), forcing us to circle at low altitude for about 40 minutes before landing; and the second required us to be grounded for about 60 minutes (a component on the wing needed to be replaced in order to pump fuel into the plane).
It doesn't give me much confidence in the quality controls of flying, but the fear mindset is much more insidious - and more importantly - in my own personal control. Whenever that mindset kicks in, I joke to myself that life has been good to me, and usually that takes care of things...
You might be able to get a prescription from a doctor for Xanax. It's an anti-anxiety drug and it's addictive, but one for each flight won't cause any problems. A friend of mine does that for his flights.
Sorry to hear that - I suppose mileage varies. My friend has a real fear of flying, and Xanax makes him not care at all (or about anything else, really - it's a good thing his wife was around to keep in line).
On the flip side, I sat next to a woman who had taken two Xanax and drank two screwdrivers during a three hour flight, and still gripped my hand (a complete stranger) during landing.
It is not really apples to apples though: there are so few people flying their own planes that the loss of one private plane would be the same as the loss of several commercial ones.
The law of large numbers apply, but only to large numbers.
People often spend a significant amount of time worrying about what tomorrow will bring and in turn negatively affect today. This is a dilemma that we all face on a regular basis. We worry about hitting our quota because if not, we will potentially lose our job; we dread an upcoming family event because we are going to be forced to spend time with a "long lost" relative; we are concerned about going on vacation because we have not kept to our diet; we worry that our start-up will not get funded and we will be forced to work at a corporate giant; we fear an upcoming airline flight and do not enjoy our vacation; and we are troubled that a loved one, (or even ourselves), is going to die because of a recent diagnosis of a terminal disease. All of these worries, dreads, concerns, and troubles lead to what I like to call "F-e-a-r"or in other words, False Evidence Appearing Real. I am sure we will agree that we often worry about future events that never turn out to be as bad as we originally thought. So in the time from the initial thought, up and until the event, we have "destroyed" a period of time that could have been significantly more enjoyable. Now there are cases that are inevitable, like the eventual death as a result of a terminal disease, but even with these occurrences, the death component is going to occur when your time is finished on earth, but the life element is up to you. Remember, F-e-a-r is only False Evidence Appearing Real.
Fear is a really interesting thing... If you can control people's fears, you pretty much control everything. Currently on display in US healthcare "debate"...
The controlling of people's fear in your usage is also known as manipulation. You're right that it works quite well since it takes advantage of the emotion parts of our psyche that are more fully evolved in us than the newer rational thinking parts.
Not at all. That was just the first thing that came to mind. Generally you could say that every major decision in politics rises and falls with people's fears. This was just a placative example, and not the least right-leaning.
The preservation of one's own life is perhaps everybody's primary goal in life, and so there are many excellent reasons for somebody to avoid risks so that this goal is repeatedly achieved. But such a life (devoid of risk) is stagnant and hindered. I wonder if this is the difference between living and merely existing.
On the concept of control, one thing that has been effective for me in helping me get over my fear of heights it trying not to control my fear. It's sounds strange, but the more I try to control the fear the worse it gets but if I just let it come and don't get caught up in the tug of war of my anxious thoughts and feelings but force myself to carry on regardless of my thoughts or feelings (which I know to be irrational anyway) I find that the fear tends to fade on its own.
I cannot even possibly describe to anybody who hasn't spent time in the captain's chair how good of a job the FAA and the aircraft manufacturers do planning for EVERYTHING.
You practically have to ask for clearance, then follow a checklist, when you scratch your beard.
I hate warped statistics. A probability is not "2000% lower". That would imply a -1900% chance. I suppose he meant that the probability of dying in a flight is 1/20 of in a car, although I cannot be sure.
How are they engaging people on these flights? What's the opening line? Are they recording them? I'm really interested in how they're pulling this off.
I tried that, and it had zero effect. Then I had another one, and something to drink, and that worked, but was probably not a bright idea. I did manage to sleep just a little bit, which was a first for me, flying. I was still terrified for the first half hour, though, so I wouldn't really say the anti-anxiety stuff had any effect at all.
Oh, they work for me. They mainly work on the physical side effects of anxiety -- the muscle tension, pain in the chest, etc. I need to also take a melatonin to be able to sleep.
The mental fear is still up to you. Usually I just embrace it and take the moment of takeoff as a time to reflect on my own mortality -- if you can come to terms with the chance of your early, violent death then there is no need to panic.
It's been theorized and shown in various studies that a lot of a drug effectiveness due to the placebo effect, so it may be that if you don't think it will help you it's likely not to.
Yeah. I have a relative who is deathly afraid of flying and she has tried taking anxiety meds. She said they just make want to talk to strangers more about how scared she is. ha ha. It breaks down normal social barriers but she is still deathly afraid. I think she'd rather try to keep it to herself as much as possible.
This concept of control is a _very_ irrational one. Of course you steer and pedal your bike by yourself. But by taking part in traffic you give up at least as much control as flying by plane. Some guy hitting you with his car from behind is not exactly in your control.
When I was getting my pilot's license, I learned to be hyper-aware of another airplane that was less than say 1000 feet from me. But the strangest part of those lessons was getting back into my car afterward and getting onto the 417, where I was a couple of feet away from other cars, also going 75mph. I was completely at these other drivers' mercy: I had effectively no time to react to them, and knew from experience that lots of drivers are just plain awful (and this was really before you'd see people driving while texting with one hand and changing their kids' DVD in the other.)
It was very, very scary. Total loss of control — far more than in an airplane, where to a much greater degree if things go sideways, it was probably your fault anyway.
The other interesting thing about the scary drive was how long it stayed scary: maybe ten minutes, tops. After that — business as usual. Didn't even think about it.
It is irrational but it shows how our mind work(what is sometime is irrational and does not always work according to statistics). On the bike you feel like you have more control because you can control one factor is yourself directing the bike and possibility avoid the accident(in your mind). On the plane you have no control in any directions. No matter what happens you are helpless and bets you can do is pray
A friend of mine flies 737s for one of the major airlines, and he once told me, "When I'm up in the air I don't give a damn about the 150 people behind me. I'm sure as hell going to take care of myself though, and if I make it through they don't have much choice but to follow me."
You may not be in control, but the pilot is, and he wants to make it to his destination just as much as you do.
That reminds me of the story a couple months ago in Britain [1]:
"One passenger then identified himself as a qualified aircraft engineer and offered to try to remedy the fault.
He was successful, and the plane landed in Glasgow only 35 minutes late...It was reassuring to know the person who had fixed it was still on the aeroplane."
Normally I'd be very worried that my plane was fixed by someone that didn't actually work for that company, but the fact that he trusted his own life to his fix would go a long way to reassuring me.
In the Canadian Army, the people who re-pack parachutes for soldiers (riggers) have a similar safe guard to ensure quality.
At any given time, a commander can select any particular chute that they've packed, and they have to jump using it. Needless to say the quality control is near perfect.
Once upon a time, the foreman on the shack that made a cannon would _sit_ on it when it was first fired (I don't think that included the cannonball, but still).
The reason was that if the inside wasn't smooth, the cannon might go off.
Well, you hope so anyway. There is always the chance that your pilot is in the process of getting a divorce or losing his/her house, going bankrupt, or something and decides to hell with it all. But your friend is right, either way, the people in the back have no choice but to follow.
If "lack of control" is what defines your fears, then I'd assume you'd be afraid of almost everything. Our water supply, break-ins, the government, etc. Can you ride a bus or sit in the passenger seat of a car? When you ride a bike, do you realize how easily a car could just take you out?
At some point you have to look at the data and determine what's a reasonable fear and what isn't. If you maintain an unreasonable fear of a reasonably safe activity, don't try to make it appear rational by explaining it's a control issue.
In most of the situations you list, we can still convince ourself we're in control. We can ditch the bike to avoid the car, drink bottled water if we think tap water is unsafe, lock our doors, jump out of the escape hatch on the bus (or grab the wheel if necessary).
On a plane, you have no options, short of skydiving without a parachute. You pretty much hand complete control, and more importantly, any illusion of control, over to the pilot.
The point here is most fear is irrational. Also, the illusion of control is just that.
And then you walk into a subway store and pick up a sandwich, the spinach you wanted for good health had E.Coli.
You contract Gastrointestinal infection and then you die.
My dad used to say "At the end of the day we all are alive because of the trust we have for one another".
Whether you know that person or not, we inherently place that trust in others.
Maybe. I never had a fear of commercial flying, but the first few lessons in a cessna 152 on a sunny day sure reminded me why people are afraid to fly.
That, and me almost killing me and instructor a few months later did that too. At least now, I can slip on landings in a very safe and accurate manner.
edit: I'm sure a few lessons can desensitize a person
Hehe - I had a couple lessons in a 150 - makes even the smallest turbo-prop commercial flight feel pretty big in comparison, doesn't it?
Glad you're still alive.
I wonder if understanding the mechanics of it all helps with the fear thing too. I seem to remember there's a decent amount of basic aerodynamics and such before they let you take the stick...
Maybe. But flying in small general-aviation aircraft, the risk of anything happening is a lot higher than with transport aircraft... Seems funny to start doing something riskier in order to be able to do something less risky...
Actually, that seems exactly right. People do exaggerated versions of what they're afraid of to get over the fear all the time. Phobic about being near snakes? A class that cures you will involve handling snakes, rather than merely being close to them.
"They pilot doesn't want to die either".
That has more-or-less destroyed any fear I have of flying.