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1. 

   Caro

   101 Kudos

   02/18/09

   Hi Captain Bunn,
   
   I have some questions for you - why is it that so many accidents happen so soon after take off? And also if I think the plane is in thick jello (which helps me so much) and it cannot drop from the sky how come that is what happened with the Buffalo accident? I hear it simply plummeted? How?My fear is what you talk about in your downloads..the fear of getting dead, knowing I am going to crash and burn and powerless to do anything about it.There is no rationale to my terror and I think constantly of what those passengers must have felt in the Spanair crash and now the Buffalo one. How can this have happened? I feel the terror and the rage knowin you are going to die a horrific death...I know sometimes there are no answers but do you have any feedback on this latest crash? there always seem to be new problems to overcome such as the freak double bird strike? A less experienced pilot would never have been able to land the plane so well on water. Should there be so many young inexperienced pilots in the profession? How can they know what to do in such unusual circumstances?
   I dont feel safe yet I need to keep flying. I have put off some great opportunities already this year as I am simply too scared to get on that plane again. I dont want to be trapped knowing I am doomed, I dont want to be on fire moaning and screaming like those poor people in the Spanair flight...the news reports said the bodies were boiling and people were screaming in pain. How can that poor woman have lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks and then she herself be killed in a plane crash? Is it becoming so regular now? I hear of so many touch and go incidents?
   Thank you in advance for your support and advice.

   02/18/09

   Reply from Capt Tom Bunn MSW LCSW:

   Why is it that so many accidents happen so soon after take off?
   
   Accidents are EXTREMELY rare. Consider that there are millions and millions of flights. There are many safety systems, so many that it is hard to understand why an accident EVER happens.
   
   And also if I think the plane is in thick jello (which helps me so much) and it cannot drop from the sky how come that is what happened with the Buffalo accident?
   
   Either the plane was flown too slow, or ice changed the shape of the wings so that what should have been plenty of speed was not.
   
   My fear is what you talk about in your downloads..the fear of getting dead, knowing I am going to crash and burn and powerless to do anything about it.
   
   That is "psychic equivalence". Please read about that in the SOAR Library.
   
   There is no rationale to my terror and I think constantly of what those passengers must have felt in the Spanair crash and now the Buffalo one.
   
   Did you read today's newsletter? This is how you have traumatized yourself - imagination of what others felt!
   
   There is always be accidents, whether plane, train, boat, car. Safety is not absolute. You, it appears, need it to be absolute and are angry that it isn't. Maybe people trained you to expect absolutes. There are none.
   
   Yours truly,
   
   Tom
   

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