Monday, July 21, 2008
Fear and loathing at 30,000 feet
7.30am on a Monday:
In about 90 minutes I have to get on a plane and fly to Auckland. Again. Already I am trepid; stricken by my irrational fear of flying.
I was fine with flying. Once.
Until the incident – a wind shear thing (people call it air pockets I think) back in ‘87. We’d just had the sharemarket crash, and this looked like it’d be the next big crash for the year. I was most definitely about to die. On descent into Christchurch from Brisbane in a Jumbo, we dropped straight out of the sky. Not smoothly either, very quickly and very rough. We fell about 1,500 feet in seconds, and it was like being a washing machine on spin cycle when the weight is unbalanced; you know, when it starts wobbling like a drunken Dalek around the laundry. Exterminate, exterminate.
Fuck it was violent. And when we finally ‘crashed’ at the bottom of the shear, the impact was such that there was, in my mind, no way the plane could possibly hold together. That feeling when you know, for sure, you are about to die, is quite confronting.
The screaming and mayhem in the plane is indescribable. Anyone not belted up hit the roof. Lots of broken bones (collar bones got the worst of it for some reason, with people at the rear) and blood too, it was a bit of a dracufest.
And I will never forget the sight of the flight attendant next to me, horizontal, hanging off the duty free trolley a good meter or so off the floor.
The funny moment: The 12 year old kid next to me woke up after we bottomed out, wiped his eyes, looked up at me and said “What’s the time.”
I just wanted to throttle him and scream: “KID, FOR FUCKS SAKE, WE’RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE AND YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCKING TIME IS!!! SHEESH, IT’S THE END OF TIME IS WHJAT THE FUCKIN’ TIME IS!!!” His parents looked at me with a kind of ‘shit, we have to die with this asshole’ sort of expression on their faces.
Anyway, we landed. Ambulances (or is it Ambuli?) took the wounded and the airline took anyone who wanted a debrief into a huge room where they explained wind shear, and that this particularly violent example was a chance in a million, and that the plane was never in danger and that wings on a Jumbo can bend around 12 meters and that everything was tickety boo…blah blah blah.
However, I simply could not get on the connector back to Wellington and, that was that - for flying - for me, for a long time.
Air NZ, bless their cotton socks, shouted me some sessions with a fear of flying shrink but while all the rational info made sense, my fear was, is, irrational.
And it was, is, a hassle.
For years, I used to drive 600 k’s to Auckland for meetings. True. It added so much time to work projects it really was a pain, but people understood and gave me that freedom.
To make the solo road trips more interesting I bought a V8 coupe, but that created more problems; man, did I ever get landed with some speeding fines. Thousands of dollars over the years.
But the biggest cost of the phobia was losing international travel for a few years. The one that mattered most was the annual good ol’ boys’ surfing trip to Indonesia.
After a while, a few years, I decided, fuck this, I’m not gonna be beaten. I needed something I could turn to, to get over this. I thought, what have I turned to in the past?
Hmmmm… God?
Nah, fuck it, Drugs.
It was a veritable epiphany. I said Yes (YES!!!!) to drugs and discovered Diazepam.
Problem solved. 40mg’s (used to be 10 but resistance has developed) mixed with a couple of shots. No problem baby, bring on that turbulence, I’m cool. And, the beauty is, I arrive at Auckland client meetings (as I will this morning) nicely stoned; very mellow the D-buzz, and the clients accept it – they understand why, so its all ok.
I don’t use Diazepam recreationally, only for flying. But, it really is quite nice. I get very chatty on it and tend to make new friends with whoever is sitting next to me.
And the flight feels like 15 minutes, not 15 hours.
It also makes you lose your inhibitions a bit, which can be an issue. Mix too much alcohol with the D and you can land up way too out of it and doing stuff that falls into the not-a-good-look’ department.
Setting off the smoke alarm in the little room on a plane is not a good look, they get pretty shitty about that one.
Another time, when I was in the flash section up front, a flight attendant was trying to sort something out on an overhead locker door and she had stood up on the ‘lounge’ seat opposite mine. I was off my tits, looking the other way, gassing to some poor fuck next to me and being very gesticulative. I swung my left arm out, and unfortunately – albeit completely by accident - my arm went between her knees just at the moment she jumped down, which in turn meant my hand ended up right on her pinky bits.
Fuck! This is not good.
And despite my garbled attempt at a multiple, simultaneous explanation/apology, and her not understanding it was an accident, man, did she ever spin out (understandable) and, well, short story, fecal matter hit the fan. It was a very big fan and there was a lot of matter.
An hour later I walk, well, stumble really as you would expect from a drunk on the D, off the plane with lots of people glaring at me and men overtly sheltering their wives and children from me. I was escorted by the first officer and another cockpit dude – and as my wife walks towards me in the concourse to the luggage pick up thingy, to welcome me home, I’m immediately grabbed by a Detective and a cop in uniform and whisked away to an interview room.
I gave my wife a sort of ‘Diazepamed out, it’ll be ok, there has been a misunderstanding, is all’ look. She gave me another sort of look, I got the old raised eyebrow, which is something to be feared in my house.
It took nearly two hours to make the cops understand. They actually called my Doctor, who saved me actually. (Thanks Dennis).
I had to apologise to the attendant, and promise never to take Diazepam and alcohol on a flight again. No charges, no further actions. Whew!
But of course I do still take the D.
It’s the only way I can fly.
40mgs will go down the hatch as I walk through security in about an hour from now and it’ll kick in just before take off. Then I’ll talk the ears off the poor soul next to me. And suddenly, we’ll land. No problem.
So really, drugs are good, as long as you abuse them, don’t use them – if you get my drift?
If our paths ever pass on the same flight, you’ll know me.
I’ll be the very mellow old dude who talks a lot. Hopefully I won’t make a lunge for your vagina. Or penis.
In about 90 minutes I have to get on a plane and fly to Auckland. Again. Already I am trepid; stricken by my irrational fear of flying.
I was fine with flying. Once.
Until the incident – a wind shear thing (people call it air pockets I think) back in ‘87. We’d just had the sharemarket crash, and this looked like it’d be the next big crash for the year. I was most definitely about to die. On descent into Christchurch from Brisbane in a Jumbo, we dropped straight out of the sky. Not smoothly either, very quickly and very rough. We fell about 1,500 feet in seconds, and it was like being a washing machine on spin cycle when the weight is unbalanced; you know, when it starts wobbling like a drunken Dalek around the laundry. Exterminate, exterminate.
Fuck it was violent. And when we finally ‘crashed’ at the bottom of the shear, the impact was such that there was, in my mind, no way the plane could possibly hold together. That feeling when you know, for sure, you are about to die, is quite confronting.
The screaming and mayhem in the plane is indescribable. Anyone not belted up hit the roof. Lots of broken bones (collar bones got the worst of it for some reason, with people at the rear) and blood too, it was a bit of a dracufest.
And I will never forget the sight of the flight attendant next to me, horizontal, hanging off the duty free trolley a good meter or so off the floor.
The funny moment: The 12 year old kid next to me woke up after we bottomed out, wiped his eyes, looked up at me and said “What’s the time.”
I just wanted to throttle him and scream: “KID, FOR FUCKS SAKE, WE’RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE AND YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCKING TIME IS!!! SHEESH, IT’S THE END OF TIME IS WHJAT THE FUCKIN’ TIME IS!!!” His parents looked at me with a kind of ‘shit, we have to die with this asshole’ sort of expression on their faces.
Anyway, we landed. Ambulances (or is it Ambuli?) took the wounded and the airline took anyone who wanted a debrief into a huge room where they explained wind shear, and that this particularly violent example was a chance in a million, and that the plane was never in danger and that wings on a Jumbo can bend around 12 meters and that everything was tickety boo…blah blah blah.
However, I simply could not get on the connector back to Wellington and, that was that - for flying - for me, for a long time.
Air NZ, bless their cotton socks, shouted me some sessions with a fear of flying shrink but while all the rational info made sense, my fear was, is, irrational.
And it was, is, a hassle.
For years, I used to drive 600 k’s to Auckland for meetings. True. It added so much time to work projects it really was a pain, but people understood and gave me that freedom.
To make the solo road trips more interesting I bought a V8 coupe, but that created more problems; man, did I ever get landed with some speeding fines. Thousands of dollars over the years.
But the biggest cost of the phobia was losing international travel for a few years. The one that mattered most was the annual good ol’ boys’ surfing trip to Indonesia.
After a while, a few years, I decided, fuck this, I’m not gonna be beaten. I needed something I could turn to, to get over this. I thought, what have I turned to in the past?
Hmmmm… God?
Nah, fuck it, Drugs.
It was a veritable epiphany. I said Yes (YES!!!!) to drugs and discovered Diazepam.
Problem solved. 40mg’s (used to be 10 but resistance has developed) mixed with a couple of shots. No problem baby, bring on that turbulence, I’m cool. And, the beauty is, I arrive at Auckland client meetings (as I will this morning) nicely stoned; very mellow the D-buzz, and the clients accept it – they understand why, so its all ok.
I don’t use Diazepam recreationally, only for flying. But, it really is quite nice. I get very chatty on it and tend to make new friends with whoever is sitting next to me.
And the flight feels like 15 minutes, not 15 hours.
It also makes you lose your inhibitions a bit, which can be an issue. Mix too much alcohol with the D and you can land up way too out of it and doing stuff that falls into the not-a-good-look’ department.
Setting off the smoke alarm in the little room on a plane is not a good look, they get pretty shitty about that one.
Another time, when I was in the flash section up front, a flight attendant was trying to sort something out on an overhead locker door and she had stood up on the ‘lounge’ seat opposite mine. I was off my tits, looking the other way, gassing to some poor fuck next to me and being very gesticulative. I swung my left arm out, and unfortunately – albeit completely by accident - my arm went between her knees just at the moment she jumped down, which in turn meant my hand ended up right on her pinky bits.
Fuck! This is not good.
And despite my garbled attempt at a multiple, simultaneous explanation/apology, and her not understanding it was an accident, man, did she ever spin out (understandable) and, well, short story, fecal matter hit the fan. It was a very big fan and there was a lot of matter.
An hour later I walk, well, stumble really as you would expect from a drunk on the D, off the plane with lots of people glaring at me and men overtly sheltering their wives and children from me. I was escorted by the first officer and another cockpit dude – and as my wife walks towards me in the concourse to the luggage pick up thingy, to welcome me home, I’m immediately grabbed by a Detective and a cop in uniform and whisked away to an interview room.
I gave my wife a sort of ‘Diazepamed out, it’ll be ok, there has been a misunderstanding, is all’ look. She gave me another sort of look, I got the old raised eyebrow, which is something to be feared in my house.
It took nearly two hours to make the cops understand. They actually called my Doctor, who saved me actually. (Thanks Dennis).
I had to apologise to the attendant, and promise never to take Diazepam and alcohol on a flight again. No charges, no further actions. Whew!
But of course I do still take the D.
It’s the only way I can fly.
40mgs will go down the hatch as I walk through security in about an hour from now and it’ll kick in just before take off. Then I’ll talk the ears off the poor soul next to me. And suddenly, we’ll land. No problem.
So really, drugs are good, as long as you abuse them, don’t use them – if you get my drift?
If our paths ever pass on the same flight, you’ll know me.
I’ll be the very mellow old dude who talks a lot. Hopefully I won’t make a lunge for your vagina. Or penis.
Labels: fear of flying
