Im scared of flying on airplanes is any one else

[milton_keynes_taxi]

im scared of flying after german wings disaster last week.Will things be made any safer after whet happened or will there always be this kind of risk involved. when flying

[ed_blackadder_1]

I love flying, but haven't been for a long time,  I think it is something that would cross my mind, but the same could be said for the underground since the bombings a few years back.

[chickengrandma-2008]

From one who's never been on a plane, I would think these things serve to make them safer.  Wasn't there talk of bringing in a new law to ensure that two people are in the cockpit at all times?

No journey is 100% safe, whatever the mode of transport, but they do say that flying is still the safest way.

[otherego]

will there always be this kind of risk involved when flying

Yes. In all worthwhile activities.

My chief fear is that this crash will result in all sorts of knee-jerk over-reactions by regulating authorities desperate to be seen to be "taking action."

It could happen again this evening, but I'd be very surprised. The incidence of pilot murder-suicides down the years has been miniscule.

As a side note - it's interesting that so much interest has been taken in the GermanWings tragedy. It would be even more interesting to know how many of the people agitating for change in its wake felt the same about the LAM470 crash in late 2013.

Or how many people would say, "What LAM470 crash?"

[bankhaunter]

Are you scared of taking a car journey or even being a pedestrian, either is far more dangerous than flying.

[milton_keynes_taxi]

No not scared of those. i believe i could be in more control of those kinds of transport if situations arose.

[bankhaunter]

It isn't necessarily you though, it could be the other person.

I've been a cyclist for a great many years I can recognise potentially dangerous situations and take the necessary action but I couldn't foresee the woman that drove out of a carpark straight into me.

I've also sat in a stationary bus watching another woman towing a horse coming down a hill and knowing she was not able to stop in time, it was going to be a head on collision.

And I've never seen a train driver jump out of their seat as fast as the bus driver did.

[malacandran]

I think all pilots, should be British. Then they would get the plane to its destination, properly.

[ed_blackadder_1]

Huh!

[mouse4702]

I probably shouldn't say this - it's terribly non-PC - but I'd feel distincly unsafe flying with a female pilot.  SIMPLY BECAUSE, as a woman myself, I know what I was like when I had PMT (fortunately post-menopuase now).  For one week out of 4, I was forgetful, scatty, clumsy -quite apart from being emotional and short-tempered!  I wouldn't have been safe driving a go-kart, let alone a plane.

[ed_blackadder_1]

I have flown with a woman pilot at least 3 times and I didn't feel insecure Mouse.

[ilove2patch]

Same here.:)

[mouse4702]

Well I'm glad about that.  I know in this day and age there's not much between the sexes, but I also know how totally unsuited I was for anything once a month. 

[bitsnknots]

I've flown with female pilots a couple times and both of them were just as good as the men.

[soundofmusichater]

If your time is up then c'est la vie ....1000's of planes fly to wherever everyday ....take the chance ...it is not a risk

[bitsnknots]

On the whole, flying is safer than most other forms of transport.

[bankhaunter]

I would only worry if I saw the pilot kick the tyres before taking off.

[fishpieface]

I'm not a great fan of flying anyway and these incidents, rare as they are, are hard to take in perspective when

you're apprehensive.  Also, an aeroplane accident has far more potential to end in loss of all lives on board

than accidents involving other modes of transport, I mean if you have a car, bus, train or boat accident there

is a chance you won't die.  However, planes are statistically safer than road transport - it's just hard to see it

that way after all those poor people were lost last week.

I drive a coach for a living and every time there is a bad coach accident I feel very sad.  Rare as it is, for someone

travelling by coach for the first time it would quite understandably put them off travelling by coach for the rest

of their days.  I know that thousands and thousands of coaches make their journeys safely and happily every

day.  I take my responsibility for my coach passengers very seriously and would be mortified if I had ever done

anything to potentially endanger any of them and it has to be said that, although in the aftermath of a tragedy

involving a coach, the driver and company often get a very bad press indeed, as does the whole industry - sometimes

deservedly but sometimes the blame is not theirs at all.  Hard at such a sad time to put things in perspective as it often

comes across as belittling the lives of those lost.

Same I guess for every kind of travelling - there are risks, the greatest being in our cars on the road.  I for one don't

think that everytime I drive my car though - not saying I'm not careful, I am, but far more people who begine their

journeys by car on our roads sadly don't return.

My heart goes to the families and friends of those many people who were taken on Tuesday, it's very hard to

comprehend how somebody in the position of being able to do that actually could or would.  But it happened

and hopefully all those people won't have died in vain, bless their hearts.

[2017clearout]

As a child of the 70s, I used to be very scared of flying, because I spent the whole time convinced that the plane was going to be hijacked.  My fear of flying continued (very inconveniently, not least because I lived overseas in my 20s, and worked mostly in a third country) until September 11th 2001, when I was on a plane.  When we finally landed, and realised why we had been so delayed leaving Heathrow, suddenly my terror of flying vanished - just like that.  I think I finally accepted that it's all in the lap of the gods or something.  I had tried all sorts of things previously to get over it, including sponsored parachute jumps, sky diving and even flying lessons - and nothing whatsoever worked.

Now I still fly hundreds of thousands of miles a year, often in really scratty planes with extremely dubious pilots, and I am very sanguine about it even so.  I figure if a drunk Russian (I'm not stereotyping-  there is a notorious pilot well known in one of the places I have to go to work, who is always rather jolly, despite the area, the condition of his plane and the general rubbishness of his situation - and who is rumoured to have been sacked by Aeroflot, though having flown them in the 90s, I refuse to believe they sack anyone.  I was bitten by a sheep on one of their flights, though admittedly, not an Aeroflot employed sheep) in a dodgy 70s Russian transport plane can't damage me, then a BA pilot on a Boeing would have to try pretty hard.  

That's not to minimise in anyway the dreadful tragedy in the Alps, I hasten to add: but the issue with a plane accident is that we become more frightened, I think, because it's often on a very large scale - hundreds of people - and most of us have no idea how a plane works or why it works (at least, I don't) whereas with motor vehicles, even ones we're not licenced for, we are generally more comfortable, because a lot of us know how to drive etc, so we feel more in control.  It remains the safest form of transport - and statistically, the majority of plane crashes don't result in fatalities: not that statistics are much comfort, I appreciate, when you become one.

This accident isn't so much a plane accident per se as a mass killing: it wasn't the plane at fault, but the plane was the weapon of choice for mass murder and suicide.  That might not make anyone feel better about flying, I appreciate, but it does show that this is a phenomenonally rare occurrence, and even rarer than a fatal plane crash.

(If you are frightened, btw, the BA course for fear of flying is supposed to be absolutely excellent for helping you to manage your fear - I've never done it, but I've only ever heard great things about it.)