In recent years, air crashes and various incidents have been highly publicized. If they did occur in the past, they were less publicized and generated less fear.

The numbers speak for themselves

Even in 2014, flying is still the safest form of transportation in the world. 763 deaths in 2014 so far, compared to an estimated 1200 for the train (and even then, only in the European Union).
As a result, most people who die while flying… die on the way to the airport!
The fear of taking the plane comes from several factors: the series of mediatized incidents, which generate a kind of psychosis, but also the lack of technical knowledge: if we know how to drive a car or a train, piloting an aircraft requires important technical knowledge in mechanics, physics and math.

Seminars to better understand

This knowledge, which allows us to go back to the base of the mechanisms that make an airplane fly, can nevertheless be popularized to be understood by the general public.
Also, for a few years now, structures have been offering training courses allowing ordinary people, petrified at the idea of taking a plane, to de-dramatize both by understanding the origin of their fears, and by providing technical information allowing them to understand the sensations that generate fear.
On Sunday, October 19, 2014, I was invited (as a courtesy) to a workshop hosted by theAirplane Fear Treatment Center.
The course was led by both a psychologist and an aviation safety specialist. These explanations were accompanied by a flight simulator session at the controls.

An often irrational fear

The fear of flying is to be distinguished from other fears such as claustrophobia or vertigo. Reinforced by news images of crashes, it is often the result of a lack of technical knowledge that does not allow us to be confident.
This fear reaches 20% of the population, and 1/3 of the population admits having apprehension before taking a flight.
Participants in courses such as this one are 60% female and 40% male, but this distribution is not found in anonymous surveys, indicating that men would be less likely to assume this fear.

Explain sensations felt

The course I attended, beyond giving simple relaxation techniques based on breathing (cardiac coherence…) and explaining the physiological mechanisms of the triggering of these fears, insists on the one hand on the de-dramatization of airplane accidents and on the other hand, on technical explanations on the phenomena felt and on the aviation industry in general.
A few numbers caught my attention:

• 600,000 people fly in an airplane at any one time
• A strong turbulence is equivalent to a movement (upwards or downwards) of about twenty centimeters, even if the sensation felt can make one think that the plane “falls” from about ten meters: It is the speed at which this movement occurs which multiplies the sensation
• In 2013, only 7 fatal accidents occurred, resulting in 165 deaths.
• On average, over the last 40 years, the survival rate in a fatal crash is over 50%.

The explanations around decompressions also demystified this phenomenon, and removed the Hollywood images from the participants’ brains!

Piloting for better perception

Flying an airplane was the last part of the course I was able to attend. Seeing these participants take the controls of a Boeing 737 in real conditions is quite impressive. Even though their co-pilot is very experienced, the dexterity they show is impressive, and they come out transformed.
I was able to see 3 small flights, one in normal conditions (CDG), one in cloudy conditions (CDG) and the last one in stormy weather (NCE), and in all cases, the instruments are used during more than 95% of the flight.
The work done by the autopilot is also quite impressive and can go as far as the automatic landing, the pilots having for work only the checking of the good functioning of the automatisms, and the taxiing.

What solutions to overcome this fear

Drugs or alcohol are not the answer, at least not in the long term. The lasting solution requires a certain amount of work on oneself, but also a better technical knowledge of aviation and its basic principles.
I recommend to all those who have a gut feeling before flying to sign up for a course like the one at CTPA. Xavier Tytelman, the expert who intervenes during these courses is a great professional who knows how to find the right words to explain and de-dramatize sometimes tragic situations. The CTPA course costs 430 €, and can be covered either by the DIF (France only) or by your mutual insurance company.
Other programs exist, notably with major airlines, such asAir France. Do not hesitate to contact them directly.