I’ve flown all but five times –not many. But quite a lot if you knew how much I’m scared of flying. From the window of my rented flat, I observe planes flying everyday and have seen them take off and land quite a lot. But I still shudder at the thought of being in one.
For those like me who have aerophobia, the term for fear of flying, nothing surpasses the feeling of having our feet firmly on ground after we get off an airplane. More so if the plane in question had to be force-landed due to severe midair turbulence. Daredevils will rebuke, of course, only to squeal when in real danger.
A few years ago, I was in a flight to Bhadrapur from Kathmandu, which had to change course and land at Biratnagar Airport. The pilot had found it impossible to navigate the terrible high altitude winds. As the plane was being jolted by the thudding winds, everyone of us inside thought we were dying. The lady in front of me was already gasping for breath and chanting: Ram, Ram, Ram... The man behind me was cowering out of fear and holding my seat tightly.
“This is it?” I asked myself. “You aren’t going to die like this,” came the reply, from within. With that, the fear of death was gone, but the fear of being in the air lingered on, a classic flight phobia, I guess.
After we landed, I met the airline’s staff, got my ticket cancelled and took a bus to Bhadrapur. I haven’t flown since.
Deep down something tells me I’m not going to die in a plane crash, yet every cell in my body cringes at the thought of flying. Why don’t my body and brain just get used to flying?
There was a time when I was scared of riding a motorbike or something as simple as lighting the cooking gas. I got over those fears by seeing others do it and doing it myself. I know for sure there are people out there who have yet to shed those fears.
So in my case, it seems, flight phobia is just going to stick with me. I’ve tried several things to defeat the fear.
I’ve tried grabbing the bull by the horns by flying again and again despite having promised myself I would never after the very first flight. I’ve tried distracting myself by closing my eyes, reading books, having music on in my headphone, or just gazing at beautiful airhostesses. As an option of last resort, once I meditated during flight. Nothing really helped.
A possible explanation for this could be that flying, in the case of humans, is an unnatural activity, and therefore, the feeling of self-preservation hardwired into our being can never be really suppressed.
Interestingly, a study by none other than the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company found that aerophobia is a widely held fear. About 25 million American adults are afraid of flying, the study said. Some of these people have never flown, some flew but got frightened and stopped, and about 40% continue to fly but do it with much discomfort. On any particular flight, about 12% of the people on board would rather not be there.
Not everybody hates flying because they have aerophobia.
Some people fear flying because they fear heights (acrophobia). For example, I don’t feel a thing while climbing up to a certain floor of a tall building. But there’s decidedly a vertical limit after which my nerves give away.
Then there are claustrophobic people who say their fear of flights emanates from being confined and the thought that they may never be able to come out. Control freaks, on the other hand, panic thinking they’ve lost control to the crew, and if anything goes wrong, all important decisions will be taken by somebody else.
So aerophobia is something very common and natural. In fact, if somebody opened an aerophobia club and everybody signed in, you would be rubbing shoulders with the likes of boxer Mohammed Ali, Tibetan spiritual leader The Dalai Lama, Hollywood actresses Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Aniston, etc. The late Kim Jong-Il, who ruled North Korea with an iron fist, and former US President Ronald Regan, too, feared flying.
Some of these well-known people have interesting ways of coping with their flight phobia. Megan Fox says she puts Britney on when flying because, “I know for a fact it’s not in my destiny to die listening to a Britney Spears album.” The Dalai Lama meditates while on a flight.
Angelina Jolie who, by the way, loves flying and has a pilot’s license, takes a precaution that could literally eliminate fear of many like me. She takes her family flying in a Cirrus SR22 plane that has a parachute that can float the entire plane to safety.
Now, if only all commercial planes could boast of such safety features.
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