Likelihood of Success

This is what we white-knuckle passengers are always afraid of:

Military planes located new debris from Air France Flight 447 Wednesday while investigators focused on a nightmarish ordeal in which the jetliner broke up over the Atlantic as it flew through a violent storm. . . .

As the first Brazilian military ships neared the search area, investigators were relying heavily on the plane’s automated messages to help reconstruct what happened to the jet as it flew through towering thunderstorms. They detail a series of failures that end with its systems shutting down, suggesting the plane broke apart in the sky . . .

The pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time saying he was flying through an area of “CBs” — black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning. . . .

Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: Automatic messages indicate the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems.

Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well.

The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure — catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean.

“Broke up…. failures… deterioration… plunging…”

I’m afraid of flying.  The very smell of jet fuel, nauseating enough as it is, automatically makes me sweat because what it fuels is my total visceral and neurological recall of my fear.

I do fly, and do it all the time.  And I am not the “nervous type.”  But I do have a visceral fear of heights — it’s entirely hardwired — and I get motion sick.  Also, as it turns out, most of my early “adventures in flight” were on the Chicago to New York route from when I was in law school.  This can often be a very rocky route, and during some winter flights we did indeed take some very, very precipitous drops in altitude.  These were taken entirely in stride by my fellow professional flier passengers, but I just turned into liquid and slunk lower and lower in my seat.  This was over 20 years ago, mind you, back when you could actually move in a coach class seat.

So I get puh-ritty religious on the airplane, tucked right up there next to God and, what do you know — none too eager to get any closer just right now.

And when you have these instinctual fears, and you add a bunch of learned fears heaped onto them, and you know how to read and stuff, you become just like one of those neurotics, you know?  You start thinking… of scenarios.  And the flop sweat comes.

This Air France story describes the kind of thing that’s just not supposed to happen.  Bad weather on a transatlantic flight?  No problem; these pilots, these aircraft — that’s their meat, right?

Right?