After the recent United Airlines turbulence incident and subsequent news coverage, those with a fear of flying (plus those not afraid to fly!) have been wondering about the wisdom of flying. Especially when flying can lead to turbulence that injured 21 people.  A lot of people hate turbulence or fear it, so the email below from Toni is typical of those we received. Capt. Ron’s response follows.

So, I was just reading this CNN article….(dumb, I know).   Someone described: ”The plane kept falling out of the sky suddenly and would pitch left and right at sharp angles….”

Is it possible that it would just continue to fall?  Can a plane crash from turbulence?

Toni,

Unfortunately this is the truth about turbulence:  you must not take it for granted that just because you have never experienced this kind of sudden and unexpected turbulence, that it cannot happen.  ALWAYS keep you seat belt fastened.  Note that while some people were severely injured, the majority of those on the flight (approximately 270)  came through it unscathed.  Contemplate that…

The aircraft will not keep “falling” because it never did fall—the lift changed suddenly over various parts of the wings due to the turbulent air flow that they encountered causing it to be “thrust” upward and downward at a rate greater than what gravity could generate if it was simply “falling.”

“Falling” is a term that unknowledgeable passengers and reporters use to describe something foreign to them in an attempt to explain what they perceived happened.

When something so dramatic like this happens, it traumatizes both the people on board and those who have experienced similar events or been in lesser turbulence and imagined themselves in the position like those on the United plane.

It certainly would be traumatizing to experience what these people experienced.  But, if EVERYONE had been strapped in securely, we would have been reading only about the otherwise frightening turbulence.  And the airplane is designed and built to withstand this dramatic turbulent episode—witness the fact that the airplane came through unscathed except for where the passengers flying through the cabin came in contact with the interior and damaged it.

One of the comments on the article referred to an injured passenger pictured wearing a neck collar. “He’s an idiot. He should have had his seatbelt fastened,” the commenter said.

While that’s true that he should have been belted in, the fact that he was flying along without his seat belt  is similar to the problem we pilots have in remaining vigilant. When you fly frequently—either as a pilot or passenger—and everything remains so routine, one can become complacent about such mundane tasks as keeping one’s seat belt fastened. Then incidents like this due to turbulence can catch one by surprise causing harm and/or serious injury.

To chide someone after-the-fact seems to come from the same school of thought as telling a fearful flyer that “it’s all in his/her head.” I’m probably being overly sensitive because of my awareness of the problem of being afraid to fly and knowing that it IS all in our heads, but a fearful flyer acknowledging this doesn’t mean they are able to automatically get over fear of flying.

Jack Canfield taught me a parenting strategy once.  He said that often when our children misbehave we send them to their rooms instructing them to “think about what they did.” A better parenting choice would be to tell children to think about “what they could have done.”  The latter not only creates a consciousness that alerts them to the fact that their behavior is a choice but also provides them with help in making different choices (assuming we include that as part of the corrective action.)

I choose to believe that reminding someone who went through an experience like this (injured or not) that choosing to remain in their seat with their seat belt fastened as much of the time as possible is a better choice than shaming them for not doing so and will likely produce a positive change in behavior.

So take the lesson offered here so that you don’t become injured.  Know that discomfort due to turbulence will end eventually, and both you and the airplane will land together safely.  If no one had been hurt, in all probability the crew could likely have continued on to their destination.  FYI, the area along the front range of the Rockies where this plane encountered the turbulence can produce some of the most the most troublesome turbulence in the world.

Toni, try to put the CNN coverage in perspective and know that you will neither crash nor experience the kinds of injuries that these people experienced because you will be the SMART flyer who keeps her seat belt on!

Be Well,

Capt Ron

Related posts:

1. Fear of Turbulence and Pilot Announcements
2. Turbulent Flight Causes Injuries
3. Planes and Fear of Flying the Hollywood Way

Image by State Library and Archives of Florida via Flickr

PBS Frontline aired an excellent documentary recently called “Flying Cheap.” It highlighted the problems with regional airlines—those airlines that supplement major airlines by flying routes not profitable to fly with larger planes.  Frontline chose to air the program on the anniversary of the Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, NY.

I was surprised when I saw the special.  And if I was surprised, I imagined you, the flying public, was shocked.  Since I am an known as the fear of flying guy through my work at Fearless Flight.com, I immediately wondered what the reaction of fearful flyers would be.  I don’t know for sure, but I can imagine a fearful flyer thinking something like, “But, Capt. Ron, you said that flying is the safest way to travel on the planet.”

I have said that often in my fear of flying classes.  And I will continue to say that.  Why?  Because it’s true.  How do we know that?  The current plane crash statistics tell us that the chances of crashing are 1 in 23 million.  What these statistics tell us is DESPITE the issues raised in the broadcast, flying on a commercial airliner remains the safest way to travel. However,

knowing the statistics has rarely helped anyone overcome their fear of flying because the solution isn’t a problem solved by logic alone. The solution comes from moving through your fears in spite of your irrational thoughts.

How Negative Bias Works

Sounds a bit like double-talk—even to me.  Here’s what I mean.  Phobias like fear of flying are fueled by stories in the media through a process called “negative bias.”  If I think that flying is inherently dangerous, then I will be drawn to stories and events that support this thinking.  That’s the way the brain works.  If I brand myself as a Republican or Democrat, then I have a preference for the values and principles espoused by each respective party and consequently don’t look for new information.  I’m even more likely to filter out information that might actually cause me to change my mind!

The NTSB and Breaking the Accident Chain of Events

After watching the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearings last year, I predicted that the Buffalo accident would be a catalyst for some needed changes in the airline industry.  These changes range from increased attention to the amount of time a pilot can remain on duty to the relationship between major airlines and their “code share” partners (those regional airlines that combine marketing resources and livery paint schemes to provide seamless travel for passengers).

The difference between you and me when viewing a broadcast like “Flying Cheap” or the NTSB hearings is perception, which varies widely because of our different backgrounds.  Before “Flying Cheap” was aired, you had no idea about the issues that were revealed.  On the other hand, I have been an advocate for Human Factors training for years-not just for pilots but for entire airline organizations. Safety happens on many levels in an airline, and accidents are the culmination of a chain of events. The pilots are often the ones who have the last opportunity to break the chain and prevent an accident, but they’re not the only ones. Other employees, such as mechanics in the Valuejet crash mentioned in the broadcast, are also responsible.

So I wasn’t shocked by the authenticity of the information or the way it was presented.  I encourage the process and whatever it takes to raise our collective consciousness to prevent accidents.  And no other industry has such a respectable tradition of investigating accidents to find causes and initiate corrective action as the airline industry.  I’ve said before, if each and every automobile accident were investigated and reported with the same diligence as a commercial airline accident, the number of automobile fatalities each year would be a fraction of the approximate 40,000 that do occur.

The same forces that cause us to resist change on an individual level are magnified in humanity as a group.  When do most fearful flyers initiate change?  When the cost of continuing existing behavior is outweighed by the benefits of changing.  When do organizations or industries (like airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration) change?  When the cost of continuing existing behavior is outweighed by the benefits of change.  And sometimes those benefits are not evident until public outrage is raised.  That, sadly, appears to be part of the human condition.

The fact is:  flying on a commercial airliner—including regional airlines—is still the safest way to travel on earth.  That should NEVER, however, serve as an excuse to reduce the vigilance that allows us to make that claim.

I will continue to promote airline flying as the safest way to travel on the planet.  Why?  Because the statistics support it to be so.  At the same time, I will continue to be an advocate of change in the airline industry to  improve those statistics even more.  Why?  Because I believe that it’s the right thing to do.

The Truth about Fearless Living

How do I view the issues raised in a story like “Flying Cheap”?  That’s easy—you tell the truth—always.  And the truth is that the issues raised in the story are real—and they have and will continue to have consequences if they go unacknowledged.  At the same time, if you use the likelihood of being killed in an accident as the only criteria for selecting your mode of transportation, you cannot justify getting into your car to go to the store.

Fear has a real purpose of alerting us to potential danger so that we can make a reasonable assessment about risk.  Fear is not supposed to prevent us from living a full, rich life.

So I choose to live fully and fearlessly. I hope you do the same.

Related posts:

1. Pill-Popping Pilots–Are You Kidding Me?

People who are afraid to fly all have something in common, a fear of crashing.  They ask:  What’s my chance of dying?  When I saw an article about fatality rates on the front page of today’s Arizona Republic, I thought of all our FearlessFlight.com visitors who worry about crashes.

Here’s the headline that caught my eye:  “Fatality Rate on Arizona Roads at Record Low.”  I was wondering how many fearful drivers read the article and thought, “Gee, it’s getting safer to drive.”

Fearful drivers–did you catch what I said in that last paragraph?  Do you happen to know anyone who’s afraid to drive?  Well, you should!  You and I should be plenty worried every time we get into our vehicles.  According to the article, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration (NHTSA) said, “Nationally, we’ve been making some excellent progress.  I hesitate to say progress, because we still have 40,000 people getting killed every year.”

Forty thousand people!  That’s equivalent to the entire population of a small town!   Yet, a shockingly high number of people in the U.S. do die in auto accidents during one year’s time, but have you ever seen this headline:  “40,000 People Perish in Auto Accidents Each Year”?

Car crash statistics just aren’t big news.  Probably because they’re so common.

I decided to check these car crash statistics against the latest aircraft fatality stats.  I personally hate going to the NTSB site because I’ve never been able to find statistics in plane..oops, make that plain language.  The best stats I found were in an April 2, 2009 NTSB press release: “In both scheduled and non-scheduled services, the airlines carried 753 million passengers on over 10.8 million flights without a passenger fatality.”  Pretty impressive!

Then on Wikipedia, I discovered a Geneva, Switzerland site that compiles statistics on aviation accidents of aircraft “capable of carrying more than six passengers, not including helicopters, balloons, or fighter airplanes.” I went to Aviation Crashes Record Office (ACRO) and was impressed with the easy-to-understand information.

According to ACRO, 2007 was the safest year in terms of the number of aircraft accidents since 1963.  Last year, of the 136 accidents registered on the site, there were 968 fatalities.  I’m not much of a math whiz, but my calculator tells me that this is a mere TWO PERCENT of the amount of people killed yearly in U.S. auto accidents. Besides, ACRO keeps records of aircraft crashes all over the world!

So if you are really worried about aircraft crash statistics, I suggest you check out the ACRO site. Then draw your own conclusions about the role crash statistics plays in your fear of flying.

Just remember, the next time you get behind the wheel of your car, buckle up and be very careful out there!  YOU don’t want to be the next traffic statistic.

About the Author:  Diane Owens has been helping people overcome their fear of flying since 2005.  She writes about fear of flying for Fearless Flight.com and assists Capt. Ron Nielsen in spreading the message that flying is the safest way to travel on the planet.

Related posts:

1. The Crashing Side of Flying
2. Fear of Flying Worse Than Before?