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"Never Underestimate People's Fear of Turbulence."
This is one of my weird hobbyhorses, so, sorry, but! Everyone I know is terrified by turbulence, so today's PSA is: "About 60 people, two-thirds of them flight attendants, are injured by turbulence annually in the United States." That's also usually because they just weren't wearing seatbelts. THE MORE YOU KNOW.
It's pretty frightening when it happens, but I always try to remember how I survived the crazy cab ride to JFK, with the dude yapping on his cellphone speeding down the Van Wyck shoulder.
What a coincidence! http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15567541
HEH! Exactly. Annnnnd pretty much everyone with seatbelts on was fine.
A friend of mine was on that flight! He said he ended up "covered in Malbec" — poor dear — but otherwise a-ok.
Oof! That is terrible.
"We're a gleaming silver death machine!" (Don't make the mistake I once did, and read White Noise on an airplane that is in the process of taking off.)
I watched Rain Man on an airplane, which I hadn't seen before. They cut the scene where he gives all the stats about airplane crashes. Which made it quite difficult to understand why they didn't just fly cross country.
I cease to be a rational human being when experiencing turbulence, but now, instead of hopping on the lap of the person sitting next to me, I will keep my seat belt on. Or maybe I will just clutch their neck harder?
HERE IS MY TIP O' THE DAY:
Keep a cup half-full of water on your tray table. You know how water bounces out of a cup if you fall down and the like? When you experience turbulence, watch the water–and how little it moves. THE SORT-OF SCIENCE MAY SORT-OF SURPRISE YOU.
Yeah, but when ppl's ginger ales start ending up all over their shirts, you get scared. This has happened on several flights I've been on.
I'm with Garge – I reserve the right to start screaming "we're all going to die" as soon as the bumps start.
Also, I conisder the Air France crash last year to be turbulence related.
That didn't work out so well in Jurassic Park.
This method sounds like something my brain might go for (I have the kind of brain that, had I phantom limb pain, would almost certainly go for the mirror trick) .. the danger would be, of course, a complete mental break if my water jumped out of the cup. But I am willing to have a stab!
After nearly plunging into the Atlantic from 35k feet a year or so ago, and watching food carts and passengers atumble, and releasing a death grip on the poor Serbian woman next to me, I decided it was probably the most exhilarating thing that had ever happened to me. Of course, at the time, I preferred a fiery death over the Atlantic to most of the other options open to me, so maybe I was a little disappointed too.
That sounds TERRIFIC.
Yeah the adrenaline is really something, right?
drug of choice.
Look, if it bothers you folks so much, just ask me and I'll happily cut way down on my Mile High Club admissions.
I am petrified of most everything. But I actually kinda dig turbulence. True story!
Goddamn, there's a very witty response to this declaration, but I can't access it. Something about sex and Frenchmen.
I'm petrified of sex with Frenchmen, too. But only because of this story. (Apologies for the link to Jezebel.)
WHOA. trauma.
That being true, I freely concede that powerful turbulence has, on numerous occasions, damaged planes. . .
I've flown on your hobbyhorse, Mr. Man, and I've done my fair share of airline litigation, with engineers. And while they follow the party line about turbulence being primarily a nuisance, none of them would tell you the right patch won't put your airframe on its ass and you in teensy weensy pieces in some hastily-arranged hanger.
All that out of the way, let me invite you to fly from Palm Springs to LAX on a 16-seater in a storm, and let's see which one of us swallows the beads.
NO CAN DO PAL.
The nice thing about turbulence is that it extinguishes the horrible emotional turbulence you boarded with. Cause now that you're dying, it doesn't matter that the future is fucked.
Turbulence turns me from a pushing-40, grown-ass man into a jumpy little girl. I clutch the arm rests and set my face in a rictus grin and hope that the last thing I see on earth is NOT a Kate Hudson movie.