It is often said – usually to people like me who are terrified of flying – that the reason we hear about plane crashes in the news is because they so rarely happen. And yet, in less than a month, there have been four incidents involving aircraft.
First, a military helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger plane in Washington DC on 29 January, killing 67 people. Three days later, a medical plane carrying a child patient and their guardian, as well as medical crew, crashed in Philadelphia, killing the five passengers and one person on the ground.
On 6 February, a small plane crashed in Alaska, killing all 10 passengers. And only this Monday, a Delta Air Lines plane crashed and flipped on the runway of Toronto's Pearson Airport, injuring 18 people.
This follows several high-profile aircraft incidents in 2024, including the fatal Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crash-landed in Kazakhstan, the South Korea disaster where all but two of the 181 people on board died, and the severe turbulence experienced on a Singapore Airlines flight.
In the not-so-distant past, there was the mystery of flight MH370 and the two Boeing 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people – and that’s before we even get to the reports of parts breaking off mid-flight and the seemingly endless stream of images of planes rocking in high winds at London Heathrow.
These are serious tragedies that impact relatives, loved ones and local communities the most, as well as the airlines’ reputations – even if the likes of Donald Trump attempt to hijack their grief by politicising these incidents with baseless claims. But there’s no denying that these events also instil a sense of significant unease in air travellers.
For people like me who are already scared of flying, they make getting on a plane even less appealing. They remind us that our safety is not a given and that freak events can and do happen. Perhaps, if these incidents were in isolation or further apart, even, people would brush them off as such. But as it stands, aviation disasters and mishaps seem to be more frequent despite industry experts reassuring flyers that safety protocols are more comprehensive than ever.
My own fear of flying isn’t a result of headline-hitting incidents, but personal experience of flying in bad weather. My plane to Nice was forced to take off again when it had only just touched down, owing to particularly strong winds. My flight from Spain to London was met with torrential rain and turbulence – the sky even turned a Wicked shade of green. Then there was a flight from Corfu, which plummeted several feet before regaining control. I have flashbacks whenever I board a plane.
And that’s the thing. For nervous flyers like me, there is a constant trade-off: do we give up the pleasure of travel, or endure an anxious journey? Until now, my desire to explore the world has outweighed that of keeping my feet safely on the ground, but these increasingly prominent events are giving me pause.
Human error is one thing and more avoidable than anything else (perhaps don’t sack several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees and make drastic cuts when public safety is concerned). But with global warming and the rise of freak weather conditions, there is little that we can do to ease the effects on a flight or safeguard ourselves from the fallout. I know I struggle to surrender control in such situations – and I don’t have kids or other dependents to worry about.
I don’t wish to scaremonger. The vast majority of flights successfully depart and arrive each day, otherwise no one would fly again. And yes, there are other modes of travel. But when some 4.4 billion passengers flew with the world’s airlines in 2023 and figures are set to rise, it feels like an increasingly difficult reality to ignore.
