Air turbulence: Fear of flying is powered by stories, not statistics

I’m convinced about the safety of commercial air travel — considering the frequency of flights, numbers of passengers transported, the trillions of aggregate miles planes fly each year. You’re more likely to be killed riding a bicycle — and, as it is, I tend to fall off bicycles. But all the statistical reassurances can dissipate once you settle into your seat and take in — once again — the aircraft safety procedures. By now, it should be like standing for the national anthem at a ball game, but alas it’s not. Your imagination can spin in all directions, toward contingencies both serious and silly.

What if I pull on the tube for the oxygen mask and rip it out instead? Should I then grab the mask from my seatmate because I need to tend to myself first? And why is that passenger in stiletto heels? The escape slide will tear! Excuse me, I don’t want to panic anyone, but may I have a practice session with the inflatable vest? I just want to be certain my head will fit through it. Why can’t it button instead…

Joking aside, flying remains an incredible — if environmentally unfriendly — convenience. In 2023, airlines ferried 4.4 billion passengers around the world. Nevertheless, for many of us, it can provoke existential angst, momentary for most but paralyzing for many. One estimate has 30% to 40% of people in developed countries experiencing anxiety ranging from mild concern to a complete refusal to fly. Because each flight involves scores of passengers, anything that goes wrong generates an immense amount of emotion, multiplied look by worried look among aisle mates as anxiety spreads across the cabin. It all contributes to the storehouse of fear and apprehension already out there about the capacities of the extraordinary machines to which we entrust our lives again and again. Experts say the most acute form of aerophobia is found among those with the most vivid imaginations.


I don’t consider myself phobic, and I continue to fly despite near mishaps. I’ve been in a plane struck by lighting during a night takeoff — the cabin went dark and for a second the emergency floor lights flashed; also one that tried to land in a clear-as-day windstorm but bounced on the tarmac back into the sky for another long spin around LaGuardia. A flight from Houston to Puerto Vallarta just couldn’t seem to gain altitude and, suddenly, we were back on the ground in Texas. As I headed for the plane’s front exit, the back door opened to let firefighters in. The rear engine by the tailfin — I think it was one of the old McDonnell-Douglas tri-jets — was in flames. So, pardon me if I stare at the engines during takeoff, or furrow my brow at the rumbling sound that whirrs beneath the cabin five minutes into the flight.

Oh, I also keep an eye out for garbage on the runway. I keep thinking of the piece of metal that fell from a departing plane on July 25, 2000 and doomed Air France 4590, the Paris-to-New York Concorde that was ready to take off after it.

I’ve flown five times in 2025 so far, but the year hasn’t inspired much confidence. Major accidents began just as 2024 ended. On Dec. 29, Jeju Air 2216 was struck by birds, causing one engine to fail and the Boeing 737 to crash, killing 179 people in Muan, South Korea. American Airlines 5342 collided with a US Army Sikorsky chopper over Washington on Jan. 29, leading to 67 deaths. Air India 171 plummeted minutes after takeoff in Gujarat on June 12, killing 242 people on board and 19 people on the ground. Meanwhile, Airbus A380s and Boeing’s Dreamliner are dogged by maintenance and safety issues, while airports from Britain to Portugal to Spain have had major breakdowns. The US Federal Aviation Administration laid off about 400 workers in response to budget cuts.

Have the troubles increased fear of flying enough to have a significant effect on travel volume? That’s hard to gauge. There are airlines where you can sign up for courses to help alleviate anxieties about being in the air (Heads-up: They’re not free). Meditation and breathing exercises can help to some extent. So can alcohol, though that has obvious problems. Valium is no longer prescribed for aerophobia because its numbing effects outlast most flights. Too much melatonin can wreck your circadian rhythms. Still, flying is the only option for getting to a distant place in the least amount of time. And, as the statistics immutably show, it’s still being safer than any other mode of transport.

But numbers don’t make narratives. Until passengers safely deplane, every trip is a Titanic waiting to happen, with the potential for drama that doesn’t need to include fatalities to arouse your fight-or-flight instincts. Misbehaving passengers are hazards too. Or curt attendants. Or the unexpected storm that can upset your plans. A quarter of a century of taking off shoes and belts, throwing out bottles of cologne and walking through metal detectors has imparted the dignity of a perp walk to airport departures. The procedures have diminished the risk of hijacking, but the aggravation — the constant poking, prying, the tantrums, the queue cutting — are the antithesis of glamor.

In my journalism career, I’ve written my share of crash stories. And, like the tales that emerged from 9/11, all of them are anguished — in the reporting and in remembrance. I may not know how well my aunt did on her flight to Seattle the other day, or whether my cousin experienced turbulence on his nearly 22-hour journey to Sydney from New York. But I still recall many stories of those who didn’t make it.

There was the loss of 520 lives in JAL 123 on Aug. 12, 1985, as it flew from Tokyo to Osaka — the deadliest single-aircraft accident in history. In the aftermath, the parents of a young boy visited the mountainside where the plane went down. They had put him on the short flight alone and were wracked with grief and guilt. They believed his spirit was still in the area and brought along a container of his favorite drink — orange juice. They poured it onto the ground to appease his soul.

And then there was a detail about a camera bag containing a young girl’s list of the gifts she wanted to shop for in Paris for her friends, fished from the ocean and the detritus of TWA 800 on July 17, 1996, after it exploded off Long Island, New York; and also, among the 230 lives lost, there was a man bearing a diamond ring who would never ever propose to the woman he loved.

The decades of interlaced loss do not make me more fearful. But nothing will dispel the sorrow.