Explain the fear of flying to me...

Please explain it. It really makes no sense to me... none.

Maybe because I spent 9 days, waiting... keeping vigil... in ICU... seeing the victims of numerous car accidents clinging to life. Maybe it's because I've flown all my life... since I was 2. Maybe it's because I've always been fascinated by it... or because I have very little patience and cannot stand any other mode of transportation (for any length of time).

Whatever the reason, I just don't understand why so many people fear flying.

And, please do not give me irrational reasons... like the "no control" comment. Do you do all the maintenance on your own automobiles? Did you check the tire pressure on your tires lately... or the breaks?

I'm not afraid of flying either...

I love to fly!

I guess most reasons are irrational...the lack of control...

And the fact that the crashes, though rare, are very spectacular!

And usually most of the people die when the plane crashes...

I dunno... :shrug:


:hi:

You are right... most reasons are irrational. It didn't bother me until recently. But, I'm hearing it more and more...

It's like some sort of "sheeple" trend.

:hi:

it is claustrophobia. I can't fly without xanax. Once they kept us on a plane for two hours on the tarmac and turned the air circulation off. I had to talk myself down so I did not get up and beg them to open the door so I could get some fresh air. Panic attack time. So I do avoid it if possible.

cause i don't have 'a fear of flying' per se, I was licensed to solo as a teenager :shrug:

..they wanted a middle seat because they feared flying in a plane and felt better not being able to look out the window! (sigh) Just when I think I've heard everything.

like the first 1-2 rows, but then i seen in my mind's eye all the rest of the passengers squishing me in the event of some plow-down crash or whatever...and i didn't much care for that image :(

:evilgrin: :hi:

When you say "don't give me irrational reasons," you're essentially writing off anyone's attempt to explain the fear to you.

I'm terrified of spiders. And it's a completely irrational fear.

People who are afraid of flying may have a range of reasons for that fear--and yes, lack of control is one of them. My mother is scared beyond words of flying, and it's the fear of dying in a burning crash that gets her. It's irrational--and she'll be the first to recognize that--but that in no way discounts that fear or makes it illegitimate.

I think you need to understand the nature of fear itself before you can even begin to understand the fear of flying subset.

if the plane breaks down, I fall out of the sky

..not...usually!

it happens

It's not the fear of flying, it's the fear of falling 10,000 feet from the sky and hitting the ground with a loud "thunk".

"Boooooooooommmmmm!!!!!!!"

:D

:hide:

You don't hear all those "ooooooooooooo's" and the "m". :)

:hi:

...and the "B" that gets people. It goes something like this...



"We're going down! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh <breath> hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh <breath> hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh <breath> hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh <breath> ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh <breath> ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhh <breath> ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhh <breath> ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"

:-)

the plane hits the ground and you should be okay. ;-)

us feeling like flying is so much more dangerous even when we logically know it isn't. Because if a plane crashes that's pretty much it for the vast majority of the people on board.

does not bother me.
It's that sudden stop at the end that gets me.

even when I'm swimming in creeks, in Missouri...I still hear...

the Jaws theme song, and cringe....

:scared:

That's funny, though! lol :hi:

Sharks biting my ass is funny!?!?!?!?!


How dare you :spank:

:) it is funny though...Jaws the movie, has changed my life, forever....

.. because as much as I love the ocean

I also fear sharks! :scared:

just pulling your leg...I love the ocean, love it to death actually, and I do fear sharks...damn bastiches....

When I was in Long Beach back in 96, I didn't go out in the water past my knee's because I feared the Jaws...and everytime I felt something brush my leg, I was punching the water like my life depended on it(usually it was seaweed brushing my leg). Its an irrational fear, yet one I have.

I was snorkeling in St. Thomas and I thought another snorkeler kicked my leg, so I kicked back - and twice as hard, too! Then I looked around... and ... guess what? Nobody was snorkeling anywhere near me!! eeek! Never did find out what nudged me under the water!
:scared:

probably a crazy starfish out for ya!!!!!!!


Nah, it was a shark probably, you are lucky to be alive(my shark hyberbole kicking in here).....

:)

Now I'm going to have shark nightmares!! lol

Hey... now I'm not laughing. :-(

oh, come on now, its just my shark hyberbole...:P

I have to be medicated to fly. :P But for me, even before 9/11, it was the fact that in anything else, be it car or ship, if something goes wrong, you're at least on the earth when it happens. When things go wrong in planes, well... you don't always fall out of the sky, but there's nowhere else you could go. It's feeling trapped, I suppose... you can't just extricate yourself from the situation. You *have* to stay in a plane.

Kinda long winded... :P

I could tell you a story, too... but I took medicine not too long ago and I'm not sure it would make sense at this late hour. Hopefully, some day, you will overcome your fear of flying. :hug:

have a fair amount of time to contemplate your impending (most likely) death. That's what I don't like. It could, of course, happen in any circumstance - I guess unless I know I have limited time because of a disease (in which case I can see loved ones again), I'd like my death to be swift. Not terrified in a plane falling out of the sky.

So, I guess for me, not so much flying, as prolonged death and sadness knowing it's probably all over.

That's what I was trying to say. :P

afraid of and aren't. I fear heights, even moderate heights, in manmade structures. But I'm fine with heights in nature. I really have to reason with myself to walk up flights of stairs with no backs (like fire escape stairs, etc.) but don't have nearly the same fear if I stand on the edge of a high cliff.

Sometimes there is no other way to explain fears except with irrational reasons.

Most fears are irrational. Then, why can't people admit then when talking about fear of flying? I guess that is more the question I'm pondering tonight... now that I'm thinking about it more.

Thanks. :hi:

To some hitting turbulence feels like the plane's going to fall out of the sky. And it seems as if the airlines don't want to talk about that phenomenon at all beyond the pilot telling you at the time that you're going to hit a patch of rough turbulence. The sensation of being jostled around up in the sky coupled with having no control is more than some people can handle.

And also try to sit between the wings. It is a little less turbulent in that part of the aircraft.

:hug:

And that does help believe me depending on the destination. If it's somewhere like Vegas all bets are off though. Then again if you flew there at night it might not be as bad.

:hug:

It's the one time between take off and landing where I know the crew is paying atnetion.

And knowing a retired Boeing engineer, I know that the wings aren't gonna fall off.

Sorry. :(

It's just a wiseguy response I post to a lot of Lounge queries. Looking at your OP in greater detail, I realize that you actually have a more serious concern here than I initially thought.

My bad, in other words. Very sorry. :hi:

Is that a really racist response or am I wildly misinterpreting it?

It's more of a slightly wiseguy response, which I now see is inappropriate to the seriousness of the OP. Sorry for any offense. :blush:

No harm! :hi:

about the contextual meaning. I understand now.

while it's quite true that cars crash much more frequently than planes do, people figure they've got a better chance in a car crash than a plane crash.

That and, every time I get into an aeroplane, I am sure that it's going to crash, statistics be damned.

:hi:

I had no idea you, too, had a fear of flying.

It would be interesting to see the statistics on age groups and fear of flying. I better fewer people over 40 are fearful of it... I just have a feeling about that.

:hi:

I used to fly around 3 or so times a year. I was fine with it until a couple years ago. I was flying to NC from Cali. There was so much turbulence ove the Smokies the plane dropped about 200 feet in a few seconds and the lights started going out. There was a high-pitched engine whine. The woman beside me grabbed my arm as though I could do anything but think we were all going to die. The flight attendants looked scared. One yelled, "Everybody fasten your seatbelts NOW!" Without using the speaker.

This is why I've been scared of flying since.

..and not irrational at all. I wonder if the plane you were in hit an air pocket or something.

I was once on a flight that was very, very turbulent because they flew through the edge of a Typhoon going into Taipei. Another time, the crew had to come into DFW with 3 attempts after a wind sheer was detected. It's never taken away my desire to fly though... I guess I'm lucky.

who did a routine on "I'm not afraid of flying, I'm afraid of crashing". It was cute.:D

Most people scoff at my fear of making phone calls. It doesn't make that fear any less "real" to me.

I don't understand other people's phobias either. But I still can have empathy and compassion for them, because I understand fear.

And, I am aware, I need to have more empathy and compassion for those afraid to fly. Funny... I have empathy for so many other things I also don't feel personally. This one just gets me... especially when people tell me driving is safer than flying. It's as if someone who is afraid of spiders would tell me they love wrapping a poisonous rattle snake around their neck, instead. That argument probably didn't make sense. Argument by analogy seldom works.

:shrug:

We established that pretty quickly...

Thanks. :hi:

My old roommate is arachnaphobic. It didn't matter if it was the tiniest little spider that was too small to even get its jaws around human flesh. He was scared to death of them. No rational explanation, the fear was just there.

My only irrational fear that I can think of also involves small crawley things... but is even less rational than arachnaphobia. I'm afraid of cockroaches. I don't know why. I know they can't actually do anything to me. But something about them freaks me the hell out. I've got it under control enough that I use Yoda's saying and turn that fear into anger, anger into hate, and then I make the little bastards suffer. I.E., I get pissed off and squash them. But still. I don't know why I have this fear. There is no rational reason for it.

There are reasons for it... but I'll spare you.

Ok, you know that twinge you may have gotten for whatever reason when you saw the subject? Whether for a sec you thought it was true or not you probably had some physical effect happen. Probably had a feeling of laughter, disgust, pevvness, lust or something along those lines -- reason unknown -- without rationality.

You can feel it if you go to the extreme of anything in your mind. Would you fear being held by your ankles 500 feet above the ground? If someone held you there for 5 minutes saying they were going to drop you and then pulled you back in and asked, what did you fear the most? The height, the fall, or the stop. What would you answer?

You know what is irrational? Screaming on the way down...



Hehe, that goes good with coffee.. my mind is clear and awake :P

:hi:

What twinge?

Was I supposed to have a twinge?

:rofl:

I was gonna use a picture of a spider. That was just my morning coffee talking. :P

:rofl:

:P

:hi:


i think its a loss of control fear.

I could tell you a story about a cockroach in Indonesia that would make you hide under the bed covers for the rest of the day!!

:hug: :hi:

:cry:

I didn't even tell you!! haha! :hug:

And not freaky in the good way. In the bad way.

and in a car accident, they usually happen pretty quick. In plane crash, typically you've got about a minute to kiss your ass goodbye. Then wait some more as the plane builds up speed heading straight down.

unless you slam into the side of a mountain, that'd be the way I'd want to go if I had to be in a plane crash. Slam, you're out. That's it.

Just so you know, it's not always quick... an automobile crash. When I was just 7, my aunt tried to avoid another car, we were hanging off the side of a bridge for what seemed like an eternity... in reality, it was probably only 5-10 minutes.

The plane's dropping. Will the crew save you? You'll know in a few minutes.

At least in a car crash, it happened almost immediately, they you can concentrate on surviving and crawling out of the wreckage.

You don't have the luxury of that for many long, long minutes in an aircraft.

I'm sure you have some of your own, even. :)


As for me, I've only been nervous the few times I've flown, so I guess I don't have a fear of flying. I am irrationally afraid of any flying instect that stings, though.

:hi:

What is it? The dark? (That's another of mine :scared:)

Heights? Snakes? Spiders? Mechanics? :P

...and that people I love or care about

might take their own lives.

There are other fears I have,

but I think I've spilled quite enough!

I can't stand being packed into those tiny seats with NO way out. Then I keep hearing these horror stories of people trapped in planes on the tarmac for hours and hours. I'd lose my mind.
I haven't flown in over 5 years and honestly I don't know if I could ever get myself in a plane again.

..would definitely make it difficult. But it can be done... if you ever need or want to fly... there are ways. :hug:

Sure it takes more time but that becomes part of the trip. I drive to Las Vegas each year to visit my mom. It's about a 5 hr drive and I can pull over and stop to see the scenery.

:shrug:

mikey_the_rat

and I'm a big wuss when it comes to flying. To me someone like you seems very brave. :) :hi: :loveya:

Hardly! Nice to see 'ya around idg! :hug: :loveya: :hi:

I wasn't always that way. It developed over time after I had some other problems in my life (unrelated to airplanes) that caused a more general anxiety disorder.

This summer I took a trip to Europe where I had to take (count 'em) no less than 9 different flights in a 3 week period. So I had plenty of time "in the moment", so to speak, to sit and think and evaluate exactly what my problem with flying is.

Here's my explanation: it's not about the airplane, or being high up, or even necessarily the loss of control because I'm not the one driving. Most of my anxiety comes from the fact that I just can't simply get off the airplane. I do have a lot of anxiety involving transportation, and in fact some of my worst panic attacks have been in cars, but in a car, I've been able to pull off to the side and get out and walk around until I feel better. If I need to, I can ditch the car on the side of the road and just walk if I can't drive anymore. Even in a bus, you can pull the cord and get off and walk in a block or so. (Although, to be fair, I have some problems with buses too, especially if they are crowded with people.)

But in an airplane, you're pretty much well and truly stuck until you land. So if you get sick, or things are too scary, you're just fucked. You have to stay there. There is just simply no way to get off the ride no matter what happens. What makes it worse for me is that a lot of times flight attendants won't let you get out of your seat if there is turbulence or anything else scary going on, so then I feel twice as trapped and panicked. I realize that you have to stay seated for a very good reason (so you don't die if the plane drops), but it's absolutely torturous mentally for me to be forced into a tiny seat and not be able to be up and walking if things are frightening. And the seats are so close together and squashed, and sometimes I can't get an aisle seat and other people won't let me out. Aaaggh! Just *thinking* about this to write it down is making me feel a little freaked out! So basically, it's not so much a fear of flying, airplanes, or dying in a plane crash, but rather some kind of situational claustrophobia.

Also, I have a dread fear of throwing up in a public place, AND I have a tendency to motion sickness. Not a good combination when you are on a turbulent, crowded airplane trapped in a window seat. :-( I had an incident this summer where I was coming into an airport in Germany through a thunderstorm in a very small commuter plane. The turbulence was horrible, I couldn't get up out of my seat, and I couldn't see anything out of the window because of heavy clouds. It was terrifying for me. I was nauseated and I started having heart palpitations so badly during the landing I thought I might have a stroke or something. It was horrible. After we finally landed, I spent the rest of the afternoon in my hotel room throwing up, and I had weird vertigo for 3 days afterwards. That's how badly the whole situation affected me mentally and physically. And that's why I despise flying.

I think I would probably do better in a chartered airplane with only a few other passengers, more room between the seats, and some measure of control over whether I could make the plane land if I needed to. But I still don't think I would like flying, and I'm not rich either, so I have to just put up with my anxiety problems if I want to travel anywhere.

This does make sense. Thank you. I, too, suffer from motion sickness... really, I do! I take Bonine *and* use "Sea Bands." As long as I use the meds and the Sea Bands, I have no problems.

Thank you for sharing this. :hug:

And it just is weird knowing you are floating in the air.

like, when a plane crashes over open water do they look at the falling people and go "ah, manna from the heavens!"

:shrug:

Not since the Pocket Pal™ came on the market in the 70's,

It detects mid-air collisions up to 5 seconds in advance.

make sense.

If you won't accept an irrational reason, well, you just will never know.

I think part of the root of the fear though isn't the likelihood of a crash, but the horrible interval between things starting to go wrong and when the end finally comes. The (equally) irrational sense of comfort in an automobile probably stems from the appearance of complete normalcy until the very instant things go wrong.

Plus, plane crashes garner much more publicity than car crashes, so even though it is much less common it is a bit more visible.

Persoanl disclosure: the only time I've ever been REALLY afraid on a plane was when I was in a sever thunderstorm in a turboporp commuter trying to land in Dallas-Fort Worth. Getting shoved around in 200 or 300 foot hops by downdrafts when you are circling at 10,000 feet is one thing, a 200 foot drop when you are only 75 feet off the runway is something else.

I just kept thinking, "wind shear, wind shear, wind shear...."

:hi:

In a car, you have control, maybe not complete control, but a lot of control of what happens. In a plane, you have no control.

When crashing or with mechanical failures a car would just stop or you have airbags and such and you have good odds of surviving. If the plane looses power or crashes, what is your odds of surviving a fall from 25,000 feet in the sky?