Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Tackling Your Fears
I've drifted asleep over the coast of Venezuela last summer. It was a red eye taking me back to New York from Brazil when suddenly our plane flew into the chop. Maybe we were passing over a storm, maybe we just hit a current of something, I'm not really sure but the plane started bouncing. Just enough to wake me up. And just enough to make someone accidentally hit a button that would reset all the flight attendant call lights. The first thing I saw as I woke up from what I'd hoped to be a long nap.
I panicked. I bit my fingers and must have turned pale white. Scared enough to freakout the guy at the window. I hit the call button and the nonplussed flight attendant said "Everything's fine, the Captain has told me I can't stand up right now though." Needless to say this didn't help my sudden panic. A few minutes later as the turbulence calmed somewhat, she came back, with some water and talked me off the ceiling. I spent the next five hours all but bracing for a crash that was never going to happen. I didn't really get back to normal til the distance maps showed us over Bermuda.
Fast forward to three months later. I'm visiting my family in Chicago and flying back. Flying on miles, I have a stopover in Cincinatti. As I'm on the plane, they announce that they are delayed due to a mechanical issue. OK, I thought. No big deal. The pilot then says "Evidently, a piece of the engine fell off, either in the air or was sheared off by a service vehicle here at the airport."
Wait, what?
A piece of the engine fell off???? Again, all I needed to hear. Panic attack starts - now! Next thing I know, I'm back in the gate, they're trying to show me the teeny piece that got sheared off and convince me that its safe to get on that plane. I wasn't having any of it. I couldn't stop hyperventilating or crying. I stayed in Ohio that night. Got on a much smaller plane back and did alright.
But I remained nervous for my next flights, I've developed this fear of flying recently. I've gotten on planes on three separate trips since this last freakout with little problem. I think its because I'm using some things online to help me. These tools are really the geekiest of geek stuff, but it helps convince me that my plane wont just drop out of the sky.
The first is http://www.flightaware.com. This website lets you track flights as they make their way across the country. It even keeps a sixty day log of previous flights and can show you that these trips are run safely day after day. http://www.flightstats.com goes one step further. It will even take a specific flight and tell you how often the flight arrives on time, how long the average delay is and often has more up to date information about what time the flight is scheduled to take off and land that day than the airlines do! Like I said, total geek-out stuff.
The other thing that I'll look at frequently is http://www.turbulenceforecast.com. This is a website solely devoted to forecasting turbulence during flights. He focuses mostly on domestic US flights, and the owner of the site "tb_neg" will even offer personalized turbulence forecast for flights coming up in the short term. He's been pretty spot on with my flights to California.
These things don't quell the fear completely, but they help. Well that, and a few glasses of wine. Nothing like flying a little lubricated.
I've drifted asleep over the coast of Venezuela last summer. It was a red eye taking me back to New York from Brazil when suddenly our plane flew into the chop. Maybe we were passing over a storm, maybe we just hit a current of something, I'm not really sure but the plane started bouncing. Just enough to wake me up. And just enough to make someone accidentally hit a button that would reset all the flight attendant call lights. The first thing I saw as I woke up from what I'd hoped to be a long nap.
I panicked. I bit my fingers and must have turned pale white. Scared enough to freakout the guy at the window. I hit the call button and the nonplussed flight attendant said "Everything's fine, the Captain has told me I can't stand up right now though." Needless to say this didn't help my sudden panic. A few minutes later as the turbulence calmed somewhat, she came back, with some water and talked me off the ceiling. I spent the next five hours all but bracing for a crash that was never going to happen. I didn't really get back to normal til the distance maps showed us over Bermuda.
Fast forward to three months later. I'm visiting my family in Chicago and flying back. Flying on miles, I have a stopover in Cincinatti. As I'm on the plane, they announce that they are delayed due to a mechanical issue. OK, I thought. No big deal. The pilot then says "Evidently, a piece of the engine fell off, either in the air or was sheared off by a service vehicle here at the airport."
Wait, what?
A piece of the engine fell off???? Again, all I needed to hear. Panic attack starts - now! Next thing I know, I'm back in the gate, they're trying to show me the teeny piece that got sheared off and convince me that its safe to get on that plane. I wasn't having any of it. I couldn't stop hyperventilating or crying. I stayed in Ohio that night. Got on a much smaller plane back and did alright.
But I remained nervous for my next flights, I've developed this fear of flying recently. I've gotten on planes on three separate trips since this last freakout with little problem. I think its because I'm using some things online to help me. These tools are really the geekiest of geek stuff, but it helps convince me that my plane wont just drop out of the sky.
The first is http://www.flightaware.com. This website lets you track flights as they make their way across the country. It even keeps a sixty day log of previous flights and can show you that these trips are run safely day after day. http://www.flightstats.com goes one step further. It will even take a specific flight and tell you how often the flight arrives on time, how long the average delay is and often has more up to date information about what time the flight is scheduled to take off and land that day than the airlines do! Like I said, total geek-out stuff.
The other thing that I'll look at frequently is http://www.turbulenceforecast.com. This is a website solely devoted to forecasting turbulence during flights. He focuses mostly on domestic US flights, and the owner of the site "tb_neg" will even offer personalized turbulence forecast for flights coming up in the short term. He's been pretty spot on with my flights to California.
These things don't quell the fear completely, but they help. Well that, and a few glasses of wine. Nothing like flying a little lubricated.
Labels: fear of flying, offlying, statistics, travel, turbulence, websites
