13 Top Fears

Take off

To the pilots taking off is just the bit they do after all the pre-flight preparations have been completed. The action of getting into the air is a logical thing to happen it’s the procedure before climbing to cruising height. Part of a well-rehearsed, well practiced, well-prepared procedure.

A perfectly normal and straight-forward part of flying. Not a big deal. Not a moment of truth. Normal … ordinary. Part of a normal day’s work.

• There’s a lot of noise because you’re in the middle of a big noise bubble.
• The take off is bumpy because the ‘suspension’ is built for settling the aircraft on the runway at 150 mph
• If you think the engines are straining you need to ask why the engineers would build a plane if the engines aren’t big enough?

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Claustrophobia

Many people who have a fear of flying also suffer from claustrophobia. The best way to address this fear is to gradually expose yourself to the situations that cause the symptoms. The fear of flying is often caused by claustrophobia and is often associated with panic attacks, the cabin crew are trained to deal with both of these conditions. If your situation were to deteriorate to such an extent that the symptoms can’t be controlled, the pilots will do whatever is necessary under the circumstances. Yes maybe that would be to divert and land.

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Panic Attacks

Despite what you may feel, the chances of a panic attack occurring while you are in flight are very low. Despite what you feel, you won’t actually stop breathing.  The best way to deal with panic attacks is to deal with the symptoms AS SOON AS THEY START. What else can you do? You must try to be generally less anxious before you fly so that you don’t ‘set the scene’ for an attack.

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Just Hanging there

Do you sometimes start wondering what’s holding the plane up? do you get the feeling that you’re ‘just hanging there? Does that give you your fear of flying or add to it? The best thing to do is to understand why and how planes fly. You’ll discover it’s not magic. It is most definitely science, engineering and mathematics. There is a full explanation complete with a video explaining this sensation. There are also videos on how you can prevent these feelings. This is a very common fear when flying. Some people worry about the apparent lack of movement. On the Premium Membership level, we’ll show you a very simple technique to see that the plane really is moving however high you are. Do you worry about the sudden change in engine noise after you’ve been flying along for hours and hours? There’s a very simple explanatiuon for that too!

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Loss of control

What does  ‘control’  mean?  For obvious reasonsthe thought of flying the plane yourself is not a sensible option to consider. The most effective thing to do is to take control of the things within your power and leave the rest to those better trained. You can control much more than you realise, it is just a question of using the right strategies. You can take control of situations where fearful flyers usually feel vulnerable. 

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

A significant Life event

A significant life event can bring about a fear of flying, worrying about leaving one’s family at home, losing a loved one, falling in love, having a family, losing a job and so on. Feeling fearful or anxious is a perfectly normal feeling to have, and happens whenever we leave our loved ones. Unfortunately, it is exaggerated by flying because the distances people are apart are much greater. Not only is there a physical detachment but  the remedy  would be very time consuming and very impractical. This increases anxiety levels. The sense of loss and frustration is not one that we are able to deal with easily. Human beings do not like uncertainty.

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Life is dangerous! Flying is dangerous … apparently … but compared with what? More people die in hospitals in the UK from illnesses contracted in hospital than are lost in plane accidents in 6 years worldwide. But we wouldn’t hesitate to go into hospital if we were ill. In one year alone 133,000 people died on the roads of India, 33,000 people on roads in the USA, 68,000 in China, 16,000 in South Africa. One and a quarter million people in one year worldwide. The worst ever year on record for commercial flying is fewer than 1500 people worldwide. The problem is of course that plane accidents are widely reported when they occur. Why aren’t the press covering stories of the carnage on the roads? If you think flying is dangerous that’s a perfectly allowable view. But it’s not supported by the facts. The irrefutable fact is that regardless of what you perceive, flying is safe by any reasonable comparison with other forms of transport. It’s a fact … it may be hard to accept – but it’s a fact.

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

When I meet fearful flyers I ask them about their flying experiences and when they’re finished I ask them if they think I would describe it the same way. More often than not, explanations of a bad experience on a flight are full of emotive words. In these accounts, planes don’t descend they “plummet”, they don’t encounter turbulence they report that “even the cabin crew said it was the worst they’d experienced”.  “We fell thousands of feet” , “we were too fast”, “the plane was too heavy to fly”, “the runway was too short”, “the weather was dreadful”, “it was snowing/raining/too hot”. “The cabin crew even looked worried”. “The wings were bending too much”.  “The pilot struggled to get the plane up”. Emotive descriptions are remembered better than factual ones. Sometimes this is valuable when we deal with everyday situations, but unfortunately, it adds to a fear of flying. Don’t use emotive language. 

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Bad Weather

Following the theme of emotive language ‘bad weather’ is a very good example. It covers a wide range of conditions that are seen through the eyes of a motorist or through social circumstances. Bad weather to a sportsman is different from weather to the organizer of a village fete. Bad weather to an inexperienced driver is different from bad weather to an experienced one. Therefore the expression, bad weather, is a relative one. The fearful flyer will see ‘flying’ as an intrinsically difficult or dangerous thing to be doing. Their experience of weather will probably be in the context of driving. If flying is difficult, then surely by all the known standards of weather it must be more difficult when the weather is ‘bad’. It is an incorrect conclusion to draw. It is not possible for a pilot to ‘have a go’ or by his extra skill be able to land when others can’t. It’s either suitable to fly or it’s not. It’s a matter of legality not choice.

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Flying at night

To a pilot flying a plane at night is as normal as it is to a driver to drive at night. Amongst fearful flyers though there’s an assumption that we have to look out of the window to fly the plane and to see where we’re going. Neither of those things is true nowadays. When taxi-ing at night the airports use colour coded lights to show the taxiways and runways. Red lights show pilots where to stop. Because you as a passenger never get to see the runway lights from the right place they probably look quite dim to you. It has to be safe to fly at night otherwise flying between Europe and Australia would take days. Flying at night is normal and safe.

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Movements of the plane

The movements on a plane are simple, up or down, faster or slower. But because of the speed of the plane and the way it goes up and down, all these things are exaggerated in terms of what they feel like. For a passenger of course not knowing what is going on or what is about to happen makes the situation worse. If you were able to see what the pilots were doing, the sensations of the plane’s movements would seem less worrying. Our senses are designed to work when we’re looking forward and walking at 4 mph, at aircraft speeds those senses are not able to help, in fact  they confuse your mental picture of what’s happening, without being able to see out or forwards … it is very difficult to work out what the plane is doing.

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

There are so many noises in a car that you could spend an entire trip listening to them, but we don’t – we filter them out. However good drivers filter out the normal ones, and stay tuned in for unusual ones … so that they can respond.

When the doors close on the plane you notice the clonk. When the flaps are extended for taking off you hear the motor running. You notice when the air conditioning system makes an adjustment to the air flow. You notice everything. As cynical pilots will say the time to really worry is when there is no noise! A noise is a sound you can’t identify and a sound is a noise you can identify.

Don’t let the fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your fear.

Flying over Water

This worries so many people. I suppose it’s natural to think that there’s more risk when there’s no immediate landing place than if you’re over the land where you could at least put the plane down somewhere. The facts, however, are that the plane doesn’t know or care if it’s over water. An aircraft is able to land on water and it will float. Pilots are trained to land on water and the cabin crews practice their dinghy drills regularly. So the chances are that IF the plane had to land it could do so successfully, and the chances are that you’d survive, and the chances are that you’d get into a dinghy, and the chances are you’d be rescued.

Don’t let your fear of flying rule your life. Get the facts and control your life.

There is a lot of information about turbulence throughout this website. What more can I add to that which I’ve already explained? I know it makes you nervous I know it makes you feel uncomfortable and I know it makes you feel worried. But think of it like this. If the pilots aren’t concerned about the safety of the plane … what help are you giving them and what difference are you making by being fearful?

Turbulence may be uncomfortable, it may be very uncomfortable, it may be unnerving it may even frighten you BUT these feelings have nothing to do with danger. You just think they do. But anyone would understand why. Don’t beat yourself up about your feelings … just remember you’re drawing the wrong conclusions from them.

If you’re worried by ‘chance’ … stop going anywhere by road!
All the things here are perfectly normal fears and feelings. They are based on your interpretation of your experiences. The fact is however that your feelings aren’t facts and it is only when you know the facts that you can start to manage your fears. Of course, you will have feelings of apprehension … why shouldn’t you? You’re a normal human being with normal feelings … it’s just a question of managing them so that you can fly with less anxiety and fear than you have now.

Facing the facts is never as difficult as facing the fear. Fear controls you … facts control the fear.