A common problem that gets my phone ringing is ‘fear of flying’. It’s must be so frustrating to be unable to fly away on holiday or on business, and it’s a condition that afflicts people from all walks of life.
At the moment, with the Icelandic volcano erupting, there is not much flying going on.
Although I am a very infrequent viewer of the TV channel National Geographic, about a week ago I found myself in front of the television riveted by the re-enactment of a major incident that nearly caused the destruction of a British Airways flight from the UK to Australia in 1982.
Flying at night across the ocean, the 747 became engulfed in a ‘St Elmo’s fire’ lightshow, which would have been amazingly entertaining if it hadn’t also been life-threatening. The flight crew were initially bemused by the firework display but couldn’t understand why it was not showing up on their radar. They couldn’t work out what was causing this phenomena and understandably became more alarmed as the passenger cabin began to fill with acrid smoke and the engines cut out one by one.
The plane had effectively become a very large glider as captain and crew struggled to control their emotions and work professionally through the required procedure to re-start the engines. Around 50 attempts later, with the plane steadily losing altitude and disaster imminent, the engines suddenly fired up.
They eventually managed to land the plane safely at Jakarta airport and the crew were quite rightly hailed as heroes for remaining so calm and professional throughout the incident.
So what happened to that plane? What produced the firework display, sand-blasted all the paintwork and logos off the aircraft, and turned the windscreen into frosted glass?
Well, they had flown into a cloud of volcanic ash.
And that was the moment that the airline industry learned a salutory lesson about the danger posed by volcanoes.
Today I listened on the radio to the frustration of airline passengers demanding to know why the airports remained closed when there is scarcely a cloud in the sky which is a beautiful shade of blue. They accused the authorities of over-reacting.
The reason why the airports are closed is because the airline authorities put safety first. It’s dangerous up there at the moment! We should be grateful that they always err on the side of caution!
So when phone rings in my office with another enquiry about my ‘fear of flying’ treatment, I can with clear conscience offer the caller the opportunity to learn how to be relaxed and to really enjoy the safest form of transport available in our modern world.