How to Cope with a Fear of Flying

How to Cope with a Fear of Flying

Flying is generally considered to be one of the safest forms of public transportation currently available in the United States. Statistics compiled by the Department of Transportation have led to the conclusion that airline travel is 29 times safer than driving an automobile.

The problem with the above statistics is that they do not stop people
from being afraid of flying.

Statistics do not help because the fear of flying actually has little to do with risk as such. If the fear of flying were actually caused by the potential for an accident, then everyone who fears to fly would be even more afraid—29 times more afraid, to be statistically exact—to drive or ride in an automobile. But that is clearly not the case.

Anyone who flies—even someone not afraid of flying—understands that there is always some chance of an accident, just as with any life activity. Relatively few accidents happen in aviation because pilots are specifically trained to stay calm and to think clearly in an emergency—and they are trained to handle just about every emergency imaginable.

But, without their own specialized training, many passengers sit in the cabin worrying about the dangers of flight. Despite the safety statistics, they become disabled by fear and experience the psychological symptoms that make flying a misery.

Because we were not designed to fly like birds, whenever we get into a “flying machine” we have to confront our deepest fears of human vulnerability. It’s not so much that flying is “unnatural,” but that in finding ourselves way up in the sky, sealed in a machine, we can hear our deepest whisperings of vulnerability more clearly than anywhere else.

Still, even though none of us is ever “in control” of anything, we can learn to be psychologically in command of our thoughts and feelings—and trust in something greater than ourselves—more than we think. We can learn to not be overwhelmed by fear itself.

Guide to Psychology

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