Trip to Germany: It’s not the flying I’m afraid of. It’s the crashing

Planes wait at skyways at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport in this 1997 photo. Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.

It was not a good day to fly.

To the north, an evil brew of clouds simmered. They’d been cooking in the August sun for hours, and now rain threatened to spill over.

But more than rain bubbled in those growing thunderheads. For a phoboic, they contained turbulence, the invisible shaking and jolting that squeezes sweat from your palms and wraps a clammy fist around your heart.

The airplane, an MD-80 that would carry me to Atlanta for an even longer flight to Europe, got itself buttoned up with a heart-stopping series of thuds and rattles as attendants pulled the main hatch shut and the baggage handlers finished up below.

I did not want to be here, and nothing would change that – not any number of statistics, the assurances of my friends, or anything else. Somewhere along the line of my life I’d picked up a flying phobia, and the fear, though irrational was very real, almost a living thing.

What I wanted to do was run screaming from the airplane, but it was too late for that. The jet came alive with a flickering of lights and a sudden hissing of the air-conditioning system. A low moan ran through the airframe as the turbines began spinning faster and faster.

For two weeks I’d been dreading this moment. Even writing these words produces a slick pit in my stomach.

Oh, and the crashes.

The weed before, a FedEx MD-11 – the same model airplane I’d be riding for the long flight – plowed the runway at Newark, N.J. It was an MD-11, back then called a DC-10, that had crashed at Souix City, Iowa. Another DC-10 went down in a billowing fireball after losing an engine on takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare.

Don’t worry, everyone said. Fate has claimed its tribute. Your flight will be fine.

Which is what those pathetic souls aboard the Korean Air flight to Guam were thinking as their 747 flew into the side of a mountain, I moaned to myself as I read the news bulletin.

Our jet was pulling away from the gate, thumping and bumping over the steamy tarmac on its way to the runway. People spoke in low voices, or said nothing at all.

Only days before, a DC-8 bellyflopped into a Miami neighborhood, killing the crew and a couple of people on the ground. They said its cargo broke loose, causing the plane to become tail-heavy.

Don’t worry, everyone said. And they were still saying it the next day when an L-1011 ran off the runway in Hawaii and nearly did a swan dive into the Pacific.

These thoughts were going through my head as the plane’s brakes groaned and it came to a sudden halt at the end of the runway. It seemed to rock slightly. Then it was still. We sat there a moment.

The pilot announced over the PA system, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been cleared for takeoff,” and my palms iced over and I remembered times I’d narrowly averted disaster in its many guises, and then it all opened up for me, and I thought what a shame it would be to take the sum of my life – all the work and time and energy that had been expended to deliver me to this moment – and crush it against the tarmac at Pensacola Regional Airport.

As the engines roared.

And the plane began to roll.

This column was originally published in the Northwest Florida Daily News on August 27, 1997 and is used with permission.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .