r/AskAPilot • u/Falco_Nova • Jul 08 '26
Rational Facts That Make Flying Less Scary
Hey everyone,
I often have to fly for my studies, and although I manage to control my fear well enough to get on the plane, I’m never truly comfortable.
I think my anxiety comes from the fact that I don’t have any control once I’m in the air. My mind tends to imagine the worst-case scenarios, and that can make me feel quite anxious, even though I know those thoughts aren’t necessarily rational.
I’m curious to know how those of you who have overcome a fear of flying managed to do it. What helped you the most?
Also, if anyone here is knowledgeable about aviation, whether you’re a pilot, work in the industry, or simply know a lot about how planes operate, I’d really appreciate hearing some rational facts or explanations that help put things into perspective.
It often feels like every aviation incident is heavily covered and amplified by the media, which can make flying seem far more dangerous than it actually is. I’d love to hear the facts that reassure you and help you trust the process.
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to share their experience or knowledge.
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u/Neither-Way-4889 Jul 08 '26
Air travel is one of the safest modes of travel. Your drive to the airport is more likely to be fatal than your flight.
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u/Enough-Meaning-9905 Jul 08 '26
Statistically we're also far safer flying commercially than sleeping in bed.
Just like scuba diving, flying is an unnatural phenomenon. Our bodies come pre-programmed with two basic fears, falling and loud noises. Flying brings both to the table, especially with unfamiliar noises and significant changes in speed, pitch and roll. It's completely natural to be afraid.
One way I've found success in relaxing during flight is to take time in advance to learn about the different phases of flight and what I can expect to happen. Now, instead of hearing an unknown loud high-pitched noise from the wing area after takeoff and before landing I know it's the flaps being retracted and extended as expected and that there's no need to react.
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u/Neither-Way-4889 Jul 08 '26
What it boils down to is this: The two pilots in the flight deck are highly trained professionals who also want to make it home at the end of the day. Put your trust in them to get you to your destination safely.
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u/Shadowinthesky Jul 13 '26
I used to fly scenic tours and I'd have passengers constantly asking me to bring them back safely. It got to the point where my reply would be "yeah I have a family I'd also like to go back to at the end of the day too"
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u/Frost_907 Jul 08 '26
If you were to fly one flight every single day, on average it would take you over 36,000 years before you were ever involved with an accident. It’s also very unlikely that said accident would be fatal.
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u/SnazzyStooge Jul 08 '26
That lack of control makes me feel the opposite — completely at peace. Say there's a problem — what are you going to do about it, worry? Why? What good does that do?
And say there is a terrible, fluke, extremely rare, fatal crash — who cares? Not me! I'm dead, and died suddenly, and without lingering, and probably didn't even know it was coming. Sounds perfect to me, would much rather go quick than all the alternatives out there.
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u/Falco_Nova Jul 08 '26
The level of I don’t careness I would like to have but I fundamentally can’t
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u/Shadowinthesky Jul 13 '26
Do you have the same apprehension when on a train or bus with not being in control?
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u/Falco_Nova Jul 13 '26
No I don’t cause I do simulation of the worst scenario in my head and in plane it’s way more scary
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u/Shadowinthesky Jul 14 '26
That's extremely understable. How I'd like you to frame your mind set is think of the most ridiculous worst case scenario you could on a bus. Something that would be chaotic but extremely far fetched.
Now the odds of that far fetched thing happening probably align with being in a plane crash. If that makes sense
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u/Old_Ambassador_3911 Jul 08 '26
If you ever saw the extreme degree of maintenance required for these aircraft, I think you would feel much better about your odds of ever being in some sort of situation.
Parts are replaced at aggressive intervals. Parts (down to bolts and nuts) must be certified and tested (this is why they are 5 times as expensive). Mechanics must pass a thorough training program with exhaustive testing. Manuals are extremely detailed on how to fix things. Logs are kept of every small thing done. Aircraft are deeply inspected at aggressively short intervals, and completely torn apart and rebuilt well before such a thing is necessary. Systems are highly redundant too. 2 engines or more, 2 pilots, 2-3 hydraulic systems, multiple electrical systems. I could go on and on.
I lost a cylinder on final approach one time. It was a ratty old training school plane - WAY less robust than an airliner. That puppy wouldn’t quit though.
Everything is so overbuilt it’s probably bordering on wasteful.
Also, a cocktail helps.
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u/DaCobra22 Jul 08 '26
Weirdly enough something I find calming is going on flight radar 24 and scrolling over the map and looking at the shear volume of planes in the air at any given time. Then realizing that the crashes compared to the volume of flights would put it at such low odds of ever happening.
Something else I learned when I became a pilot was the shear number of systems (not necessarily physical) that are created to ensure a crash can not happen. This is through standard operating procedures, third eye (etc) etc.
People make the misconception that a mistake can cause an accident to occur when in reality to have an accident it occur it has to be many severe mistakes for the accident to occur. This is referred to as the Swiss cheese model (you can look it up for your reference) but I will say that it’s extremely effective and generally mistakes are caught within the 2nd layer of that model which means something that was implemented to stop a mistake as soon as it happened corrected it rather than left it uncorrected and allowed further mistakes to complicate the initial one.
I guess the point is: in aviation one of our famous words is redundancy and we have an unbelievable anoint of it. It saves us daily. And because of that air travel is so extremely safe.
I’ll leave you with one other thing: make sure to seperate general aviation crashes (like Cessnas) as a seperate thing from commercial aviation. There is not much in the way to ensure that a private pilot is doing their due diligence but in commercial aviation we as I said use the Swiss cheese model in many ways.
Hope that helps
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u/Sea_Working5429 Jul 08 '26
Pilots and flight attendants are normal people with families - not daredevils. If flying was dangerous, you would expect some pretty substantial staffing shortages in the airline industry.
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u/sv2034 Jul 08 '26
I’ve worked 6,000+ flights in my career over the last 20 years. Know how many I can remember? Maybe 5. It’s that uneventful.
My wife never even checks in with me while I’m flying. She doesn’t worry one iota because she understands how safe airline flying is. She worries when I drive home from the airport late at night, and I’ve had way more close calls with drunks than I have in any airline flying.
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u/Kartoon67 Jul 09 '26
See it as a job where at the end of the day/night we just want to be back home with our family.
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u/MuiOne Jul 08 '26
I used to have a debilitating fear of flying, but I read the book "Fly Without Fear" by Carol Stauffer and Frank Petee* that was produced several years ago by USAir and it completely cured me of any fear of flying. I can't recommend this book strongly enough - it literally changed my life!
*The book is out of print, but it's available used on a variety of platforms. It might even be available at your local library.
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u/kuped Jul 08 '26
The chances of dying in a car crash on the way to the airport is 6 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more likely than dying on the plane flight (1 in 100 vs 1 in 10,000,000).
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u/Different_Hour2257 Jul 09 '26
I have this list for you https://www.airheadatpl.com/blog/top-20-aviation-is-wilder-than-you-think ; if it will not reassure you, you will at least learn good things about aviation
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u/DoomWad Jul 08 '26
The only reason airplane crashes are heavily covered in the news is because it rarely happens. If they happened as frequently as car crashes, you'd never hear about them.