On Planes

Written while flying

I’ve always been afraid of planes. No matter how many times I read up on the safety statistics, there’s something deeply unsettling about being so high up off the ground, of having no control as to whether you live or die. It just feels like a deeply ironic way to go in today’s world of safety. Plus the moments of helplessness wouldn’t be great. At least in a car there is a semblance of control as you react behind the wheel. At least a shark attack is cool and over quickly.

No matter. Flying is one of the safest things you can do on earth, far away from speeding cars and people with guns. Planes are super stable, turbulence is just the plane wiggling within a block of jello, and there’s nothing but air up there to deal with. Still, my palms are sweaty on every takeoff and on every bump of turbulence I have to turn off the music and do breathing exercises. In fact, any change at all in physical state, whether that be noise, pitch, yaw, vibration frequency, etcetera requires the front brain to come in and do some rebalancing of the fear response. Drop the cortisol level via breathing, release tension in the neck musculature, perhaps force some smiles to temporarily increase serotonin. Laugh at the absurdity of the situation and think of the times I’ve actually been in danger, yet felt fine. To this day I’d rather walk on the side of the highway in a dusty hot desert over boarding a plane, even one with a 7/7 safety rating, periodic maintenance checks, and a 0.0000037% chance of being in an accident when calculated on a per-trip basis.

Half of all plane accidents happen during landing, but weirdly I’m never nervous during this period. Any lingering concerns are overwhelmed by the sense of relief at making it to the end. Somehow, being able to see the ground rush by gives me a false assurance of capability, like if there was an issue I could dodge the ensuing fireball, flip through the air, and maneuver my way safely back to the ground. Fears are also assuaged slightly if we’re over the ocean. The possibility of making a water landing and escaping lends a slight illusion of agency that softens the nerves. Of course, sometimes there’s turbulence on the descent and the familiar lurch of the stomach, acidic burn in the back of the throat, sweaty palms and pumping heart make a reoccurrence. And if a connecting flight is on deck after touching down, resignation at the knowledge that the relief is short lived.

This whole silly routine of fear, assurances, and relief that I have to go through every time I step into a gate continually shows me the limited control the mind has over the gut. There’s a sense that these periods will be tense for the rest of my life. Everyone likely has different hangups and irrational fears - I suppose we have to massage these periods of fear into life. I pretend not to freak out as I walk across the runway to a rickety bush plane. I’ve had tangential encounters with the possibility of death only a couple of times, and each time I was almost eerily calm. It’s funny that with the odds so much lower I feel that many times more mortal.

I wrote the above on a bumpy international flight to China. And here I am back again, six weeks later, flying to Hong Kong. Alas. Writing about the fear response contextualizes things in a way. I think it helps. Once again we’re on a bumpy flight - the plane is calm (or at least pretending quite well). The flight attendants are the level of unbothered I’d be if I was driving around the bumps of a flat gravel driveway, despite hurtling across the heavens in a giant coke can designed by the same human species that can’t seem to properly design a printer. I can only aspire to this level of chill.

Luckily I have a new strategy that works pretty well: considering how small the relative motion of turbulence is for the plane compared to a human body. What may feel aggressive to me is quite a small shake from the plane’s point of view. This helps a lot actually, although on the more significant episodes I still have to go through my typical breathing procedures. Other times, I’ll close my eyes and pretend I’m driving a car. Then in context the bumps are relatively mild. I flash back to when I lived briefly in Sumba and would get around in the bed of a pickup truck, bouncing heedlessly across the prairie and jungle on what could only vaguely be considered roads. Any flight, in comparison, is small potatoes. This illusion works, for a time, but requires significant mental capacity to maintain. I fear the only true solution, alas, is to get over the fear of powerlessness and death that accompanies being a biological life form. I seem to recall earlier international flights in my life being a lot more chill. Perhaps only now do I understand what is capable of being lost.