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Passengers feared for their lives on an Israel-bound Flydubai flight after its co-pilot stabbed the other pilot on board and may have attempted to hijack and crash the plane.
Flydubai flight FZ1073 plummeted 14,000 ft in less than 30 seconds while travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, then put out an emergency signal and changed course over Jordan.
Several passengers joined crew members in physically restraining the attacker on the floor, while an off-duty British pilot on board executed an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
After passengers got to safety on the ground, families recounted bidding goodbye to each other as the hijacking attempt unfolded. Meanwhile, others who watched the incident play out have raised concerns over their fear of flying, taking to social media to say their flying anxiety has skyrocketed.
Professor Robert Bor, a clinical aviation and aerospace psychologist at the Centre for Aviation Psychology who has written papers and books on treating fear of flying, recognises that an incident like this is “everyone’s nightmare”.
To cope with anxiety, however, this situation needs to be put into perspective.
“These [incidents] are so incredibly rare that we can list, name and number them on two hands in the history of modern aviation, and the outcome here was incredible as well,” Mr Bor said, praising the heroism of crew members and passengers.
“It shows that, in spite of something being so incredibly unwelcome, chilling, awful, not every situation on board an aircraft that we dread has an unhappy ending, so we need to put it into that perspective.”
It is currently unclear what caused or motivated the pilot to carry out the attack and the potential hijacking. A professional pilot taking such action has called into question what is being done to screen pilots to ensure they are fit to fly.
“Pilots are highly skilled, hugely focused on safety and security as part of what they do, as are the airlines as well,” Mr Bor said, highlighting the rarity of the Flydubai incident.
“This kind of incident – there may be a handful that have happened in the history of aviation,” he added. “I think people can just be hugely reassured that behind the scenes there are a huge number of things that go towards ensuring safety and security.”
What is the psychology behind a fear of flying?
Mr Bor says that fear of flying is in the top 10 phobias, particularly in countries with frequent air travel. Yet, the interesting difference between a fear of flying and other phobias is that it does not necessarily lead to avoidance.
Air travel is often essential to reach other countries, whether that’s for a holiday, to visit friends and family abroad, or for work that requires travel. So many people who fear or dislike flying still board a plane to reach their destination, whether they enjoy the experience or not.
This is different from other fears that can be more easily avoided, such as someone who has a fear of clowns – they will simply not go to the circus, watch scary clown films, and maybe stay indoors at Halloween.
While some people vow never to get on a plane, Mr Bor explains that a fear of flying does not necessarily lead to long-term avoidance; instead, it can materialise as an “arousal”.
He explains: “By that, we mean people may feel stressed, they may get sweaty, they may do a lot of thinking.
“They may do some bargaining with people around them, with themselves, with God or whoever it may be. But it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an avoidance.
“With flying, there will be people who don’t want to be on the plane, but who are going to manage it.”
It is not always a plane crash reported on the news that can trigger an onset of fear; there are multiple reasons why people may have stress or anxieties around getting on a plane.
“Part of it may just be familiarity, ‘how does all of that metal stay in the air? ’” Mr Bor says.
“The other is just the physical experience. As a species, we’ve not evolved to fly, we’re best suited to being on the ground.”
Fear may also be influenced by pre-existing stress, worry and anxiety in our day-to-day lives stemming from other events, as Mr Bor explains: “Rarely do people get on board an airplane completely free of any feelings.
“You do sometimes get a slight surge increase [in fear] following an incident or accident, but we attribute that, obviously, to what’s called the recency effect.” Examples of this may be experiencing severe turbulence or going through another traumatic incident outside of flying, such as a car crash.
Mitigating factors can mean that our fears do get more “aroused”, but does this mean we will avoid getting on a plane? Mr Bor says: “The true answer to that is rarely.
“Does it increase the number of people who are choosing not to fly? They may be more wary. They may check things out more. They may look up the weather. They may ponder, ‘Am I on a safe airline?’ and maybe switch to a different airline. They may go back to their reservation and change the seat that they were on, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to avoidance.”
Long-term factors can also impact people’s levels of fear. For example, growing up travelling with a parent or family member who also had a fear of flying.
With so many contributing factors, it’s hard to tell if there has been an increase in a fear of flying due to a recent awareness of fatal plane crashes, especially as people are continuing to travel by plane.
Mr Bor says: “Where the statistics are at the moment, they probably are no different and haven’t been different in the last 15 to 20 years.
“We have got used to hearing how unbelievably safe air travel is, and that actually hasn’t changed, in spite of these headline-grabbing incidents.
“So air safety hasn’t been compromised. We’re not into some new era of it sliding away.”
How to cope with a fear of flying?
Those who do opt to go on a plane may still worry about how their body will react, such as having a panic attack or becoming overwhelmed with stress.
“At one level, this is human nature. The body is seeking to protect us from something that we perceive to be aversive,” Mr Bor explains.
If fearful flyers are looking to calm their anxieties about flying, Mr Bor recommends trying therapy, whether that’s reading books or talking to professionals such as counsellors, therapists or psychologists.
He says: “The treatment is about understanding what it is about that situation, particularly being on an airplane, that causes us that stress, learning about how the body is reacting, and then learning ways to override it.”
If you are flying with a fearful passenger, Mr Bor says that the worst thing you can do is be dismissive. “When people say to someone who’s got a fear of anything, ‘Oh, stop it. That could never happen’, all it does is make the person feel bad about the problem that they’re having.
“What we need to do is figure out what reaction they’re having and say ‘that’s a normal reaction that your body’s having. Yes, it’s a bit excessive, and here are the ways that we calm it down,’ through deeper breathing, through meditation, through distraction, or through reappraising of the risk in front of you.”
Read more: What happened on the hijacked Israel flight and who was behind it?
