Hello all,
I'm new to this site, and so glad I found it. I'm a long-time fearful flyer, jumping at every shudder and judder, but a couple of years ago I decided I wanted to apply to college in the US (I live in Europe), and with the help of a great one-day fear of flying course, managed to get myself both into a school and onto the transatlantic flight. I realised that while I'll never be happy at 30,000 ft, it was just about do-able.
The problem is that I came back to Europe for the summer, and have to return to the US for the new semester in a few days, but hearing about the awful, tragic accident in Madrid has made my terror rear its ugly, unhelpful head again. Until now, I guess I assumed (maybe naively?) that the plane being so close to the ground, so soon after take-off, would be less likely to cause the degree of destruction that it did. [Update: I've just read the message posted by Captain Tom a few days ago, speculating that the Spanair crash may have resulted from the pilot not following standard procedure and trying to land when one of the engines failed instead of continuing with take-off. This idea makes more sense than anything I've read in the press about the accident, so Captain - thanks for explaining.]
In the past week, there seems to have been an unusual number of incidents reported in the media (and I don't think it's just my paranoid perception) - two emergency landings due to 'technical faults', and today, a sudden loss of cabin pressure that caused a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 to drop 26, 000 ft in five minutes (though causing no serious injuries beyond ear problems, thankfully). Some passengers reported that their oxygen masks failed, and the plane made an emergency landing in France.
Reading about this latter event (all the while knowing I shouldn't!!), I saw a major newspaper quoting the operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine (who I figure must know what he's talking about, right?) as saying "pressurisation failures were "not rare" and were inevitable in an industry that carries 2.25 billion people per year: "A hole can appear because some damage was done which nobody notices and, because of the constant stress of pressurising and depressurising the cabin, it becomes bigger over time."
The idea of "damage which nobody notices" has sent me into gibbering-wreck panic-mode, and my question to the captains (or anyone who can answer, please!) is this: how "not rare" are pressurisation failures, and if this should happen over the Atlantic rather than over land, as today's incident did, would it mean automatic disaster?
Thank you very much for reading (and really hope I haven't made any already nervous flyers feel worse with my post! I know how fear tends to be infectious)
-- scaredycat33
I'm new to this site, and so glad I found it. I'm a long-time fearful flyer, jumping at every shudder and judder, but a couple of years ago I decided I wanted to apply to college in the US (I live in Europe), and with the help of a great one-day fear of flying course, managed to get myself both into a school and onto the transatlantic flight. I realised that while I'll never be happy at 30,000 ft, it was just about do-able.
The problem is that I came back to Europe for the summer, and have to return to the US for the new semester in a few days, but hearing about the awful, tragic accident in Madrid has made my terror rear its ugly, unhelpful head again. Until now, I guess I assumed (maybe naively?) that the plane being so close to the ground, so soon after take-off, would be less likely to cause the degree of destruction that it did. [Update: I've just read the message posted by Captain Tom a few days ago, speculating that the Spanair crash may have resulted from the pilot not following standard procedure and trying to land when one of the engines failed instead of continuing with take-off. This idea makes more sense than anything I've read in the press about the accident, so Captain - thanks for explaining.]
In the past week, there seems to have been an unusual number of incidents reported in the media (and I don't think it's just my paranoid perception) - two emergency landings due to 'technical faults', and today, a sudden loss of cabin pressure that caused a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 to drop 26, 000 ft in five minutes (though causing no serious injuries beyond ear problems, thankfully). Some passengers reported that their oxygen masks failed, and the plane made an emergency landing in France.
Reading about this latter event (all the while knowing I shouldn't!!), I saw a major newspaper quoting the operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine (who I figure must know what he's talking about, right?) as saying "pressurisation failures were "not rare" and were inevitable in an industry that carries 2.25 billion people per year: "A hole can appear because some damage was done which nobody notices and, because of the constant stress of pressurising and depressurising the cabin, it becomes bigger over time."
The idea of "damage which nobody notices" has sent me into gibbering-wreck panic-mode, and my question to the captains (or anyone who can answer, please!) is this: how "not rare" are pressurisation failures, and if this should happen over the Atlantic rather than over land, as today's incident did, would it mean automatic disaster?
Thank you very much for reading (and really hope I haven't made any already nervous flyers feel worse with my post! I know how fear tends to be infectious)
-- scaredycat33
