Fear of flying

So, I am finally writing about the fear of flying. To some it's a touchy subject because it just hits home. It's that fear that causes people to squeeze their armrest during takeoff or landing. It's that fear that makes people pay more to drive somewhere than to fly. What I want to know is, "why?" Naturally, as a pilot I cannot understand this fear, where it's foundations come from, or why it is mentioned when there are so many other dangers we face in our everyday lives. Quite frankly, it annoys me. Through this post I hope to offer my point of view and offer some comfort to those who find air travel uncomfortable.

How would you define fear? Besides that physical gut-wrenching feeling, how would you describe it in words? Some common definitions are, "a distressing emotion caused by an impending danger," or, "concern," or, "anxiety." However, I would like to offer another definition that applies to the fear of flying. I would define fear as an irrational human response to the unknown. In other words, a lack of knowledge causes fear. For example, I would say that some people are afraid of ghosts not only because of their 'scary' appearance, but also because their origens or how they came about are unknown. If we know how ghosts exist or where they come from then perhaps we wouldn't be so afraid of them. People may be fearful of other people's cultures because they know little about it, when in fact that culture is anything but threatening.

With respect to flying, passengers don't know everything that is going on during every flight and thus when something strange occurs or if their gut says something is wrong, fear takes over their mind. However, through all of my years in school, I've learned that human instinct is wrong more times than it is right. I guess the only thing I can say about this is that if something's wrong, the flight crew WILL let you know. When the airlines say their top priority is the safety and comfort of their passengers, they're not kidding. They are professionals who train twice year, sometimes more (even doctors don't face recurrent training), to be sure that they are up to date with the correct procedures and to maintain proficiency. These flight crews are tested to their limits and face training in many more and complicated emergency situations than one would experience in an entire lifetime. Do you know what happens if they fail? They lose their job. Bottom line: trust your flight crew, even if they don't greet you with a warm smile, because I guarantee that they know what they are doing and they have the experience to prove it.

Air safety is not some unorganized network that is rarely enforced. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has its own set of Federal regulations dictating what must be done to ensure safety before flight. If an airline does not comply, they are simply breaking the law. I wish you could see the book of Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) sitting on my desk. It's two inches think with small text and two columns per page (front and back), covers everything from unmanned balloons to commercial flights, and keeps getting thicker. For example, you know that announcement flight attendants make before every flight that your baggage must be stowed in the overhead compartment or underneath the seat in front of you? Well, that's actually a federal regulation. FAR91.523 specifically says, "No pilot in command of an airplane having a seating capacity of more than 19 passengers may permit a passenger to stow baggage aboard that airplane except under a passenger seat in such a way that it will not slide forward under crash impacts severe enough to induce the ultimate inertia forces specified in part 25.561(b)(3) of this chapter." You see how specific that is? When a company like Boeing manufactures an aircraft, they also must abide by these regulations during the construction. That's a good segway into my next point. Bottom line: although it's a government organization, trust the FAA and its regulations.

Aircraft are manufactured and engineered to be safe. I know this may be hard to believe, but people are smart. Smart enough, in fact, that they can devise a way to make thousands of aluminum tubes fly at high altitudes and subsonic speeds with a very very very very very very very tiny rate of failure. Additionally, they are tested FAR beyond their operating limits. Take the new Boeing 787 as an example. It just conducted its first flight about a month ago, and it is not even close to its first revenue flight. In the next nine months, it is going to experience situations inflight that will likely never happen under normal circumstances. During these flights, technicians are collecting momentous amounts of data through their computers that relay even larger amounts of information. Take a look at this video as well: Boeing 777 wing test. This video was taken in 1995, when the Boeing 777 was still in testing. Here, the aircraft is undergoing its wing flex test. All wings bend or 'flex' a little inflight because more load is placed on them than when the aircraft is on the ground. In the video, cranes are attached to the wing tips and pull the tips up vertically to simulate extreme conditions. The wing structure does not rupture until it reaches 154% of its design limit. That's smart engineering at its best. Bottom line: trust the engineers and designers because they're smarter than you.

Lastly, trust the numbers. This one bothers me the most by far. Countless studies confirm that air travel is the safest form of transportation, but yet people still fear air travel. I don't care what doubts you have about statistics. I have my doubts too sometimes about them but I have to agree with them when it comes to air travel. Statistically speaking, you have to fly every day for 20,000 some years before you are involved in an aircraft accident. How many people died in car accidents in the U.S. 2008? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's estimates show that 31,110 people died in crashes from January through October of that year. How many people died in plane crashes tha same year? 502 according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). That's the global result too, not just in the U.S. Imagine the difference between the 502 global aircraft deaths and the god-knows-how-many global automobile deaths. I'm sorry, but when someone says they don't want to fly because they don't want to be another statistic, it simply holds no ground at all. Period. I could literally spend days supporting this point with endless amounts of studies and other evidence. How can you not trust that evidence?!?! Perhaps the only reason people still fear flying is because the media concentrates on a plane crash whenever one happens. Yes, it's certainly tragic that people died and it seems more tragic that more died at one time. What I really wish the media would do is cover every single car accident in the U.S. that occurs and report the number of deaths as well. I GUARANTEE that you would never set foot in your car again. If you're willing to accept the risk of sitting in your driver seat every day, then sitting in a plane for a couple of hours should be a walk in the park. Bottom line: trust the numbers, because numbers don't lie.

To conclude, I would like to refer back to my definition of fear: an irrational human response to the unknown. What I want you, the reader fearful of flying, to take away from this is to realize the lack of rational behind your fear and to be completely calm and comfortable in that aircraft 7 miles high. Furthermore, realize that air safety is really a complex network of preventative measures handled by professionals and very intelligent people who live their lives working to make it even better. Lastly, realize that you are in fact hypocritical and irrational if you step into a car without second thoughts but have a breakdown upon boarding an airplane. I know that you may still have many unanswered questions, so please do not hesitate to send me an email at mike_stangy@msn.com.

Also check out my flickr page for new photos! I uploaded a few new videos to my youtube page as well, including one of my friends and I from the University of Michigan flying around: Flying around Michigan. If you have a youtube account, please subscribe! As always, comments on my blog, photos, or videos are always appreciated.