Flying Phobia

[cupcake22]

I used to fly pretty frequently. I didn't like it, but I could deal. Then I had 2 scary plane experiences and ever since then I have avoided air travel at all costs. I am missing out on all of this fun stuff because I'm too afraid of being in a plane crash. Any advice on overcoming my fear?

[BellaDonna]

I had a similar experience. I just got on a plane again after 20 years of being paralyzed by a flying phobia. I took Ativan to get throught it. lol

 

Aside from that I used Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Techniques, such as looking at pictures of where I want to go & re-reading stats that flying is the safest form of travel.

As scary as it may sound at first, I also reminded myself that if I were in a plane crash, the experience would be so quick that I would not feel what happened- I'd probably die of a heart attack before the moment of impact.

 

I decided that small amount of time a crash takes (in the unlikely event of one) isn't worth spending a lifetime in fear and not doing fun things.

 

Also, ride large planes whenever possible. See if you can get a pre-board pass on the basis of anxiety (get a doc note if needed). That way you can sit where you want and feel more control.

 

Start small- for my first flight in over 20 years I picked a short trip that was a nonstop, direct flight.

[PJK]

Study the science of flight, that's how I got over my fear...now I love to fly. It's actually quite interesting, airplanes can't help but stay in the air...and although they seem so heavy and lumbering at times, compared to the amount of lift the wings create the airplane is in fact quite light.

 

And at the speeds they fly at the air actually takes on liquid characteristics...it becomes very thick. The plane is sort of stuck in the air.

 

Anyway you can research it more but this is what got me over it.

[OptomisticGirl]

My husband loves commercial air planes (he can tell you what every part on the plane does and if you give him the flight numbers to a plane that crashed, he knows every single one of them and why they crashed, etc). He watches this show called Air Crash Investigation - it's like a documentary series that covers plane crashes (ones that have been investigated and the cause found out, they skip from old crashes to new ones) that goes through what happened, why the plane crashed, what caused the crash... honestly watching the show helped me with the little fear I did have. In watching the show you realize it's never the plane that fails, it's almost always human error that causes a crash, that there is a series of events, never just one pure cause. I looked at it as the same as getting behind a wheel of the car. It's almost never the car itself that fails and causes accidents, it's the human error of the drivers. Yet we still get behind the wheel of a car almost every day of our life and you are far more likely to be in a car accident than a plane crash when you think about the number of flights that take off around the world every second of every day.

 

It's helped me understand planes and take away what fear I had and in a way respect those beautiful pieces of machine. Once you understand how they work, how they fly, and ultimately what can and does make them crash (which is what the whole fear of flying is, your afraid of crashing) it opens up those doors.

[friendsoulmate]

When I was a kid, I had neighbors and classmates who would be surprised and would scoff, if I told them I had never been on a flight before. First they would scoff, and then they would brag about how fun their last flight was and what a great experience their family vacation was. I did not go on my first flight, until 4 years ago, when I was 38. Part of it was because of my fear of flying, and partly because it just wasn't necessary, if I can drive a long distance, for a vacation. I thought it was an amazing experience looking out the window of the plane the whole time, which I still do. Sometimes I am nervous about how much the wings shake/wobble on a flight. I expect a little shaking and turbulence, because it has happened on every flight I have been on. The wings shake more in and around storms, but there also can be sudden turbulence in clear, sunny, partly cloudy/partly sunny weather. On my last flight I got a new scare, when we were preparing for a landing, and then it was cancelled and we started ascending again. The captain told us the winds were not agreeing with them, so they had to circle and make a second landing attempt, which we then landed safely that time. I also remember a lesser scare on a different flight, when we landed harder than expected and it made a "bang!" noise, followed by "crackling" noises throughout the plane.

[PJK]

I'm actually reading a book right now about the guys who flew bombing raids in WWII. It just made me.realize how durable planes actually are. They would return with holes in the fuselage, wings, busted propellers, and all sorts of other mechanical problems from anit-aircraft fire. When they landed they would just patch them up and take off again. Its amazing.

 

So when I see the wings bend and shake bit during turbulence I just think about what those guys saw in 1944.

 

OptimisticGirl-Your husband has it right, the more you learn about these.machines, the more comfortable you become with them.

 

My next step is to actually learn how to fly them.

[OptomisticGirl]

Yes, planes are very durable. They can stay in flight even with a cabin decompression with a hole in the fuselage.

 

Take flight 447 for example of how it's not the plane that fails. The peto tubes did become blocked but that in itself did not cause the crash. The pilots pushed the nose of the plane up instead of down when they were being clear warnings they were going into a stall. This was at night so they had no horizon to go by but that's what the artificial horizon is for. They crashed because of human error when the plane could have easily been set down. Once you realize that, flying is no more dangerous to you than driving.

[Hoagy]

Perhaps you could try taking a flying lesson. It'll give you a better understanding of how they work with one-to-one guidance and even give you the chance to take the controls yourself. A lot of fear is the feeling of not being in control. I feel scared being on a fairground ride when its operated by some teenage kid. I don't trust him.

[cupcake22]

Thanks everyone!