Anyone remember The Fear of Flying despite being safer than driving?
The Captain
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After having flow since age six (Switzerland to Paris, NYC to Caracas, 1946) I developed a panic level fear of flying after three unrelated but concurrent incidents around 1955.
- On arrival to Caracas by cruise ship there was a lot cry and wailing at the dock. Lots of passengers had family on the plane from NYC that had crashed shortly before we arrived. I could have been on that plane.
- My cousin, José, my childhood idol in aviator glasses, had recently got his license to fly the Convair turboprop and he was lost at sea on a DC3 cargo flight to Costa Rica. Never found.
- My grandfather died
I got over it some twelve years later after seeing Dr. Vega, a Canadian psychologist. I knew I was over it when i boarded a plane after news that an acquaintance had died in a plane crash. Some time later I made multi-stop trip to the USA where I flew on every model of passenger jet current in America at the time. The last leg was to Caracas. As the plane approached the airport it flew into a cloud cutting out all visibility. I got the distinct feeling that it was going to fly into the same mountain that claimed the above mentioned arrival. I said to myself, “All that therapy wasted to die in an airplane crash. Oh, well.” Moments later the plane came out of the cloud on the perfect glide-path to the CCS airport. I said to myself, “You sure do like to BS yourself!”
The funny thing about my fear of flying, even before seeing Dr. Vega, the panic the night before a flight was so great I could not sleep, breaking out in a sweat. Once the plane took off I became totally calm, there was not a darn thing I could do about the plane crashing so why worry?