Does boarding a plane give you anxiety? Does turbulence make you sweat? If so, you’re not alone; nearly 40 percent of Americans experience anxiety while flying.
Air Force veteran Skip Bailey, a flight training coordinator at the Aviation Institute at University of Nebraska at Omaha, knows a thing or two about the chances of surviving a mid-air disaster and the safeguards in place.
What would happen if a plane ran out of fuel?
Bailey said it’s highly unlikely that would happen because “every flight is planned meticulously.” Additionally, commercial planes are required to have additional fuel reserves. Every flight is also given what’s called an ‘equal time point’ in case of an emergency.
“Say we’re flying from New York to London, and you’re out over that open ocean,” Bailey said. “Well if you get to a certain point and you have a problem, at that ‘equal time point’ you would be able to turn back. If you’re past that equal time point, then you would continue on.”
Could a plane survive losing an engine?
“All airliners have at least two if not more engines,” Bailey said. “So they all have the ability, if something happens to one of those engines, to be able to turn around and get back to an airport.”
Engine failure happens about 25 times each year, but it’s survivable. In February, a United Airlines flight from Denver to Honolulu experienced engine failure shortly after takeoff, but was able to safely return to the Denver airport.
BREAKING
This is the moment United flight 328 landed in DIA
Passengers cheer.
You can see damage to right engine.
Video: Troy Lewis #9news pic.twitter.com/wyYqlEEJgZ
— Chris Vanderveen (@chrisvanderveen) February 20, 2021
Bailey said multiple engine failures would be his worst case scenario because it would mean the plane has no power.
What if something goes wrong over water?
In the case of a water emergency, a pilot would have to rely on ‘ditching’. It’s a controlled landing over water and a last resort.
Ditching is incredibly difficult but not impossible. Captain Sully Sullenberger executed the most famous example of water ditching when he successfully landed a plane on the Hudson River in 2009. Everyone survived.
“If you think about the number of people that do fly without an issue every single day of the year, it’s amazing,” Bailey said.
