A wagon train sounds more appealing to me right now than setting foot on a plane with a pilot more trained in detecting microaggressions at work than changes in airspeed and altitude.
I hate flying. My poor husband still has a sore arm from where I grabbed him every time the plane hit turbulence on our last flight. I didn’t always hate it — I used to fly across the country to and from college constantly without thinking about it. I’d fly to Europe without stressing about anything other than how bored I’d be for 12 hours. The Chuck Yeager voice of the calm pilot telling me to put my seatbelt on was reassuring. I was in good hands — the best.
But after one super bumpy flight through a storm cloud during a landing in Paris, I developed a fear of turbulence. This led to me falling into a plane crash rabbit hole. I learned about every gruesome plane crash from the last 50 years. I began to try to find out what caused most crashes, in a vain attempt to prevent having to go out like that.
What brings down an airplane? 9/11: al-Qaida terrorists. The American Airlines crash right after 9/11 out of JFK airport in New York: pilot error. The terrible Air France flight from South America: frozen pitot tubes and pilot error. The Calgon Air crash: ice and pilot error. The miracle on the Hudson: fat geese.
The miracle on the Hudson flight confirmed that
