Learning to fly without fear
Ihave been flying on planes since I was six years old, taking more flights per year than I care to remember; nevertheless I am hopelessly, ridiculously frightened of flying. This is not an unusual fear, mind you—many people suffer from it. The point is, it is irrational, certainly inconvenient and no doubt just as unpleasant for the people sitting beside me (often staring at my pallid, horror-stricken face as if I were mad) as it is for me.My anxiety attacks follow a precise pattern: as the jet centers on the runway, preparing to make that final approach, my pulse quickens and my mouth grows dry. Gathering power, the engines rev up with a fierce roar and I am thrust back in my seat as the beast of a machine accelerates down the airstrip with me trapped inside, clutching the armrests for dear life, my eyes squeezed shut, my heart beating wildly. And then the plane lifts into the air and I clench my body and glance frantically at the other passengers, who (callous creatures!) are lazily fanning themselves with their newspapers or quietly dozing off. I focus my gaze on the ground below as it grows smaller and smaller, trying desperately to shut out the clear image of the aircraft hurtling towards those little dots and splitting into millions of pieces, instantly killing everybody on board. Anxiously, I wait for the seatbelt sign to be turned off and the pilot to give us comforting words on the weather and flight time. However, until that moment every sound provokes a terrified reaction—the groaning sound of the wheels being drawn up into the cavity of the plane, the hissing overhead (is that a gas leak?), the creaking and grinding, which sounds like the wings breaking off—all this ties my stomach into a pretzel, makes my breathing erratic and more often than not I gasp, “Oh God! What the hell was that?”
The worst part, of course, is my overactive imagination. The moment there is even a hint of turbulence or the power reduces and it sounds as if the engine has spontaneously cut off, I picture the nose of the plane plummeting down into the ocean. Immediately I look around for the flight attendants, in order to scrutinize their demeanor and ascertain whether I should be alarmed.
So when I heard that Lufthansa Airlines, together with a team of psychologists, has been offering seminars for relaxed flying since 1981, I decided to check it out. I was not interested in enjoying flying (I’m not asking for a miracle after all!) I simply wanted to be able to sit in an aircraft for the duration of a flight without entertaining the other passengers with my freakish display of angst. I spoke with Silvia Texter, owner and managing director of Fliegen Ohne Angst, and I made a pleasant discovery. The weekend-long seminar, limited to groups of 10 to 12 people, aims to dispel the fear of flying by refocusing a person’s thinking, teaching them about aviation technology and practicing coping mechanisms. The doctors in the program (one psychologist per group) view fear of flying as a legitimate phobia, albeit an irrational one, and encourage participants to take an active role in overcoming their fears.
Essentially, there are three reasons why people have a fear of flying. Firstly, they suffer from similar phobias, such as claustrophobia or an obsessive fear of dying. Secondly, they are subject to overwhelming stress or have a new life situation, such as the death of a parent, a divorce, the birth of a child, etc., to cope with. Or, thirdly, at some time in the past they were involved in a disturbing flight incident. The first part of the program addresses these causal issues with a psychologist, who teaches relaxation techniques and desensitization through therapy. The second part of the course involves a step by step explanation of the theoretical aspects of aviation by a trained pilot. This includes technical information on both the interior and exterior of an aircraft, simulator training, pilot and crew-member responsibilities, basic principles of flying, things that can go wrong with an aircraft and how the pilots deal with them. The seminar is rounded off with some practical training when all participants are sent on a routine Lufthansa flight. According to Texter, the immediate success rate of participants is 95 percent, whereas the long-term rate ranges from 80 to 90 percent—people are often surprised at their ability to fly panic-free after just a weekend, so it is evidently a beneficial experience. Seminars cost € 700 and are conducted in German (although individual packages are offered in English and other languages) and further information can be obtained by visiting www.flugangst.de or by calling (089) 39 17 39.
