[goldinfra]

I had a crippling fear of flying and I still have anxiety about it. One way I got over it was by learning a lot more about aviation. Now I'm really not afraid of anything happening on a plane short of a. catastrophic failure like a wing snapping off or b. uncontrolled fire in the cockpit. Most other things are recoverable, and those problems are very unlikely.

The flaw that caused the fatal 737 MAX crashes was something that that better trained pilots would have been able to overcome. And this would likely be the case for most problems. The recent door plug blowout did not cause a crash, for example.

So I would not be afraid to fly on a 737 MAX from a major US airline over US territory. It wouldn't be my preference but I wouldn't be afraid to.

[rootusrootus]

Wings snapping off hasn't ever really been a concern for me ever since I saw those early videos of how hard it is to brake a 747 wing. If I had to describe a current fear (which may be as unfounded as the wing one), it would be fire in the cargo hold.

On my last flight I smelled the distinct smell of plastic which was too hot, and it occurred to me that we were two and a half hours out of Kona and still two and a half hours from the west coast. Maybe that was irrational, but it certainly got my fears amped up a little.

It also didn't help that we were in strong turbulence for 4 straight hours and the flight was just plain uncomfortable. I wanted out of that plane in the worst way, LOL.