Fear of flying

[User0311]

Iv always had a fear of flying but it hasn't stopped me travelling abroad once or twice a year. I'm due to fly in 2 days and with all the current news regarding turbulence I'm naturally more worried than usual. Is it really becoming more common now? I haven't heard of turbulence much in the news but twice in a week and now my anxiety is heightened for my upcoming flight 😫

I fly a couple of times a year despite also having a fear of flying, but turbulence doesn't usually worry me. I read the fear of flying book which explains it as the plane riding waves of air, like a boat rides actual waves in the sea,which helped me visualise it and stop worrying about plummeting with no end!

Re the recent events, I would say the best advice is to keep your seatbelt on at all times, unless going to the loo, which is what they recommend anyway, exactly for this reason.

Enjoy your trip!

A

@User0311

Is it really becoming more common now? I haven't heard of turbulence much in the news but twice in a week

There are concerns it might be becoming more common but there really hasn’t been a sudden upturn over the last few weeks/months. Fundamentally events causing significant injuries are still very very rare, but have happened occasionally on and off over the years though rarely been reported in the national/international MSM.

What we have had in the last week or so is that two events happened close together, which can occur with anything that’s basically happens on a random basis.

The Singapore airlines incident was a genuine outlier due to the fatality(which may or may not have been a direct result of the turbulence) and of course there was a UK link (flight ex-London and Brit’s involved) so it obviously became newsworthy here in the UK…

That in turn definitely sensitized the press and they have suddenly taken an interest in the subject and are headlining pretty much any incident that might in the past not got beyond local/regional news.