Bad Turbulence and Redirected Landing Still Affecting Me A Year On
Hi,
Last year I was doing 2 short flights every Sunday Glasgow- Dublin in the morning and back again in the evening. I was so used to this flight, it's only about 40 mins and knew every bit of it like the back of my hand. I did about 30 flights from Sep - Feb for work and never worried about flying, in fact it was just part of my weekly routine. On my last scheduled flight, before I wouldn't be going back to Dublin for a few months I had a very bad flight.
All was going normal, it was a bit rainy when we took off but that was very normal for Glasgow. 30 mins in the pilot said "cabin crew seats for landing" as normal, but then things started to feel a bit different, there was a lot of turbulence and instead of trying to land we were still flying an hour or so in. We started to make a descent and the plane dropped for what felt like ages. We started getting thrashed by the crosswinds, going side to side, but we were about 100ft from landing at Dublin so I thought we were going to land, but we started going back up in to the sky. We flew again for another 20 mins before trying to go in for landing, the turbulence was really bad, sick bags were being given out etc and it was quite a quiet flight, so noone was screaming, but you could feel the fear in the cabin. We attempted to land once or twice again (can't remember because I basically blacked out). I remember we were so low to the ground everyone was getting their "welcome to ireland!" texts and I was messaging my family saying I loved them. I felt like I was never going to have my feet on the ground again.
After the last landing attempt the pilot said that we were going to go to Manchester to land because the weather was too bad to land in Dublin. We finally managed to land in Manchester and I'd never been more happy. The idea was to wait for the storm to ease and fly back to Dublin but I chose to get off because my nerves were absolutely shot. Also by this time we had been in the air for 2.5 hours and I was already very late for work so there was no point in flying there to have to return in a few hours.
It was genuinely the scariest thing that has ever happened to me, made worse by the fact I was alone. I know that I wasn't technically in 'danger' and the pilots did what they were trained to do and turbulence doesn't hurt the plane. But my body was a mess, shaking, sweating, crying, feeling like I was going to pass out.
I have done hypnotherapy, I have read up about planes and procedures etc and am very logical but I cannot get my body to know that we're not in a dangerous situation. I have flown several times since last year, again mostly alone, and most notably a flight from Bangkok to Dubai in January that had 5 hours out of 7 of turbulence and I cried the whole way. I then had to do a 7 hour Dubai to Glasgow straight after (which thankfully was a lot less bumpy).
I wonder how do people manage when it is a strictly somatic response? Any time there are bumps my body goes into that fear response again and I think what happened in Dublin is going to repeat. I want to travel and don't want my fears to stop me but I also am so aware it's affecting me hugely. I did a flight from Dublin to Glasgow on Tuesday which had some big bumps that really set me back. I am on an anti-anxiety med (but I can't take beta blockers) but I think even a dose that could kill an elephant doesn't work when I'm in that heightened state. I will say travelling with someone really helps but I love to solo travel and don't want my holidays dictated by someone else's availability. Would love to know what has helped others! thank you
