Last January, Shandy Brewer boarded an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., to Ontario, Calif., en route to her grandmother’s birthday celebration. She was seated in the 11th row, between her father and a stranger. Shortly after takeoff, Ms. Brewer and the other passengers heard a loud bang. She couldn’t see that 15 rows behind her one of the plane’s doors had blown off, exposing passengers to open air at 16,000 feet.

今年1月，珊迪·布鲁尔搭乘阿拉斯加航空的班机，从俄勒冈州波特兰飞往加利福尼亚州安大略去给祖母庆生。她坐在第11排，一边是父亲，一边是一位陌生人。起飞后不久，布鲁尔和其他乘客听到了一声巨响。她没有看到，在她身后15排的地方，一扇舱门脱落，乘客们暴露在近5000米的高空中。

Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, and passengers began to pray. She thought they were going to crash. As the plane made an emergency landing in Oregon, Ms. Brewer hugged her father with one arm and the stranger with the other, wishing she could record a video to say goodbye to her mother.

氧气面罩滑落，乘客们开始祈祷。她以为要坠毁了。当飞机在俄勒冈州进行紧急降落时，布鲁尔一边搂着父亲，一边搂着那个陌生人，希望能录一段视频，跟母亲道别。

Nearly 11 months on, the mental distress caused by less than 20 minutes of panic in the air is its own form of injury, said Ms. Brewer, now 30: “People say, ‘Nobody died on this flight’ — but we could have.” Ms. Brewer sees a therapist and practices breathing exercises, but she still has an occasional recurring nightmare about being on a helicopter without doors or a frame, clutching her seat to save herself from barreling into the sky. She’s also set off by loud noises. On the Fourth of July, the sound of fireworks made her feel “extreme panic,” and she had to hide indoors.

现年30岁的布鲁尔说，将近11个月过去了，空中不到20分钟的恐慌所造成的精神痛苦本身就是一种伤害：“人们会说，‘这架飞机上没有人因此死亡’——但我们本来可能会死的。”布鲁尔去看心理医生，做呼吸练习，但偶尔还是会做噩梦，梦见自己坐在没有门或框架的直升机上，紧紧抓住座位，不让自己飞出去。她还害怕巨大的噪音。国庆日那天的烟花的声音让她感到“极度恐慌”，不得不躲在室内。

“There’s a cloud over me all the time reminding me that I could die at any second,” she said.

“乌云一直笼罩着我，提醒我随时可能死去，”她说。

When people discuss fears of flying, they’re often reminded that planes are quite safe. According to a 2022 analysis of commercial aviation safety conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, “There has been a significant and sustained reduction in airline accidents in the United States over the past two decades.” The analysis found that flight safety had “improved more than forty-fold.”

当人们讨论飞行恐惧时，他们经常会被提醒，飞机是相当安全的交通工具。根据美国国家科学院在2022年对商业航空安全所做的分析，“在过去20年里，美国的航空事故显著且持续减少。”该分析发现，飞行安全“提高了逾40倍”。

But statistics matter little to a mind that can’t stop replaying an upsetting event, especially when startling emergencies continue to make the news. “A lot of people develop significant anxiety after these incidents,” said Rebecca B. Skolnick, a clinical psychologist and adjunct assistant clinical professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “It becomes not just something that happened to them, but something that shapes the way they think about the world, and flying in particular,” she said.

但对于一个无法在脑海中停止回放令人不安的事件的人来说，统计数据几乎没有意义，尤其是当令人震惊的突发事件不断出现在新闻中时。西奈山伊坎医学院的临床心理学家、兼职临床助理教授丽贝卡·B·斯科尔尼克说，“很多人在这些事件发生后都会产生严重的焦虑。这不仅仅是所发生的事情本身，还有影响到他们思考世界的方式，尤其是对飞行的看法。”

Ms. Brewer and more than 30 other passengers from the Alaska Airlines flight are suing the carrier and Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, citing “severe stress, anxiety, trauma, physical pain, flashbacks and fear of flying and also objective physical manifestations such as sleeplessness, PTSD, hearing damage and other injuries.” According to the lawsuit, one of the plaintiffs wrote a text to their mother, believing, like Ms. Brewer, that the plane was crashing: “We’re in masks. I love you.”

布鲁尔和那架阿拉斯加航空航班上的其他30多名乘客正在起诉航司和飞机制造商波音公司，理由是“严重的压力、焦虑、创伤、身体疼痛、闪回和对飞行的恐惧，以及客观的身体表现，如失眠、创伤后应激障碍、听力损害和其他伤害”。根据诉讼，其中一名原告跟布鲁尔一样也认为飞机正在坠毁，在飞机上给母亲写了一张便条：“我们戴着氧气面罩。我爱你。“

‘I made it, but my life is affected.’

“我活了下来，但我的生活受到了影响。”

In the past year, the air travel industry has come under scrutiny for numerous flight safety issues, such as planes veering off the runway, hydraulic leaks and tires falling off — all with passengers aboard. Last May, one passenger died and 83 were injured when a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence, forcing an emergency landing. In July, on a flight from Spain to Uruguay, severe turbulence put 40 passengers in the hospital.

在过去的一年里，航空业因多起飞行安全问题而受到关注，例如飞机偏离跑道、液压泄漏和轮胎脱落——所有这些事件都发生在飞机有载客的情况下。今年5月，一架新加坡航空的航班遭遇严重气流颠簸，导致一名乘客遇难，83人受伤，不得不紧急着陆。今年7月，一架从西班牙飞往乌拉圭的航班也因严重颠簸致40名乘客需要留院。

(Extreme turbulence requiring hospitalization is relatively rare; according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, in 2023 there were 20 reported instances of serious turbulence injuries. But climate change research suggests turbulence will get worse because of increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. One 2023 study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that severe or greater clear-air turbulence increased by 55 percent between 1979 and 2020.)

（需要住院的极端气流颠簸相对罕见；根据美国联邦航空管理局的数据，2023年报告了20起严重颠簸伤害事件。但气候变化研究表明，由于大气中二氧化碳水平的增加，颠簸情况将会变得更加严重。发表在《地球物理研究快报》杂志一项2023年的研究发现，1979年至2020年，严重或更高级别的晴空湍流增加了55%。）

In March, the engine of a plane traveling from Houston to Fort Myers, Fla., caught fire over the Gulf of Mexico. The plane landed safely, but Dorian Cerda, 28, a passenger who was seated near the window — close enough to feel the fire’s heat — said the experience stayed with him. On the flight, tensely awaiting an explosion that never came, he recorded a video for his wife and small children, telling them he loved them.

今年3月，一架从休斯顿飞往佛罗里达州迈尔斯堡的飞机发生引擎故障，在墨西哥湾上空起火。飞机后来安全着陆，但28岁的乘客多里安·塞尔达说，这种经历让他难以忘怀。当时他坐在靠窗座位，距离近到可以感觉到大火的热量。在飞机上，他紧张地等待着最终并未发生的爆炸，他为妻子和年幼的孩子录制了一段视频，告诉他们，自己爱他们。

Now, Mr. Cerda says the incident is “always in my thought process” when considering travel, especially because he has a young family to provide for. He said he has become more of an overthinker, worried it will happen again. “I’ve been on five airplanes, and one of them caught on fire,” he said. “My odds are at 20 percent. I wouldn’t risk my life on a 20 percent shot. I made it, but my life is affected.”

塞尔达说，现在，在考虑旅行的时候，“总是会想到这件事，”尤其是因为他有一个年轻的家庭要养活。他说自己变得更加多虑，担心这种情况会再次发生。“我坐过五架飞机，其中一架着火了，”他说。“我的几率是20%。我不会拿我的性命去赌20%的可能性。我活下来了，但我的生活受到了影响。”

今年3月，多里安·塞尔达乘坐的飞机在墨西哥湾上空着火。由于担心自己无法生还，他为家人录制了一段视频，跟他们道别。

Martin Seif, a clinical psychologist and specialist in the treatment of flying anxiety, said that many with plane-related fears suffer from anticipatory anxiety, meaning they’re afraid of something that may happen — or happen again — even if logic suggests it won’t. “There’s no difference between feeling anxious and feeling that you’re really in danger,” he said. “In the neurology of anxiety, there’s the whoosh of the amygdala getting fired, and then the thoughts or narratives that keep the anxiety going. When you’re in this altered state of consciousness, these thoughts feel very likely to happen.”

临床心理学家马丁·塞夫表示，许多与飞机相关的恐惧者患有预期性焦虑，这意味着他们害怕可能发生（或再次发生）的事情，即便逻辑表明并不会发生。“感到焦虑和感到自己真的处于危险之中没有区别，”他说。“在焦虑的神经机制下，存在着杏仁核被激活的快速反应，然后是让焦虑持续的想法或叙述。当你处于这种意识改变的状态时，这些想法就很有可能发生。”

Dr. Skolnick added that avoiding air travel “maintains the fear, because that teaches the brain that it’s dangerous to fly.” For some, even packing luggage or browsing fares online can induce anxiety.

斯科尔尼克还说，回避坐飞机“让恐惧得以维持，因为这会让大脑知道坐飞机是危险的”。对于一些人来说，哪怕是收拾行李或者在网上浏览票价，都会诱发焦虑。

There is some research on how a traumatic flying experience can affect a person’s mental health — specifically on survivors of plane crashes. One 2016 study found that 47 percent of participants who had survived a plane crash were at risk for PTSD and 35 percent were at risk for depression nine months later. A 2013 study found that 78 percent of the participants displayed emotional or affective symptoms, such as hypervigilance and difficulty sleeping, after surviving a crash.

研究表明，创伤性飞行经历会影响心理健康，特别是对空难幸存者来说。2016年的一项研究发现，在空难幸存参与者当中，47%的人在九个月后有患上创伤后应激障碍的风险，35%的人在九个月后有患上抑郁症的风险。2013年的一项研究发现，78%的空难幸存参与者在空难后表现出情绪或情感症状，如过度警觉和睡眠困难。

But the harm inflicted on passengers who experienced in-flight emergencies — but did not actually crash — has not been as researched or recognized. After the engine on Mr. Cerda’s plane caught fire, the airline offered him a $15 meal voucher.

但是，在飞行中遇到紧急情况但实际上并未坠机的乘客所受到的伤害还没有得到同等的研究或认识。塞尔达乘坐的飞机引擎起火后，航空公司向他提供了一张15美元的餐券。

Neither the Federal Aviation Administration nor the National Transportation Safety Board has policies or recommendations regarding passenger mental health after emergencies. Mina Kaji, a public affairs specialist at the F.A.A., said that the agency’s “number one priority is to advance the safety of the nation’s aviation system.” She added that “We are continuously proactive, consistent and deliberative in executing our responsibilities to the American public.”

联邦航空管理局和国家运输安全委员会都没有关于紧急情况后乘客心理健康的处理原则或建议。联邦航空局的公共事务专家米娜·卡吉说，该机构的“首要任务是提高国家航空系统的安全性”。她还说，“我们在履行对美国公众的责任方面一直是积极主动、始终如一和审慎的。”

‘We experience the same things as passengers.’

“我们和乘客有着同样的感受。”

Eileen Rodriguez has been a flight attendant for 38 years and is the critical incident stress management chairperson for Transport Workers Union Local 556, which represents thousands of Southwest Airlines flight attendants. If an emergency occurs on a flight, Ms. Rodriguez makes contact with the flight attendants within hours to determine how to help. “We experience horrific events,” she said. “It can take time off and a lot of support to work through that.”

艾琳·罗德里格斯从事空乘工作38年，是运输工人工会556分会的突发事件压力管理主席，该分会代表着西南航空公司数以千计的空乘人员。如果航班上发生紧急情况，罗德里格斯会在几小时内与空乘人员联系，以确定如何提供帮助。“我们经历过可怕的事件，”她说。“要度过难关，可能需要休息时间和大量的支持。”

Closer to the beginning of her career, Ms. Rodriguez worked at American Airlines. A turbulent flight caused her to sustain a head and back injury and a broken foot. After healing physically, she returned to work with one of the airline’s regional brands. Less than a year after the first incident, as the sole flight attendant on a small prop plane, she was involved in an emergency landing. She took six months off to attend therapy and deal with the fear of flying that had developed. She got back to work eventually, but it wasn’t a simple transition. “The anxiety was very high for me,” she said. “Any little jolt or sound or anything that was unfamiliar caused me to become scared.”

罗德里格斯刚入行时在美国航空公司工作。一次颠簸的飞行导致她头部和背部受伤，脚部骨折。身体康复后，她回到该航空公司的一个地区品牌工作。第一次事故发生不到一年之后，她作为一架小型螺旋桨飞机上唯一的空乘人员，遭遇了一次紧急迫降。她请了六个月的假去接受治疗，应对由此形成的飞行恐惧。她最终回到了工作岗位，但这并不是一个简单的过渡期。“我非常焦虑，”她说。“任何轻微的震动、声音或任何不熟悉的东西都会让我感到恐惧。”

Ms. Rodriguez noted that the kind of critical incident support offered by flight attendant unions today would have helped her back then. “We experience the same feelings as passengers,” she said.

罗德里格斯指出，今天空乘工会提供的那种紧急事件支持可能会对当时的她有所帮助。“我们和乘客有着同样的感受，”她说。

Heather Healy, the director of the employee assistance program for the Association of Flight Attendants union, said the general public may incorrectly believe that flight attendants are immune to emotional trauma from flights. Over time, repeated events can worsen the impact of frightening experiences, just as they would for anyone else. “Instead of seeing each incident as something that builds your armor, view it instead as something that puts chinks in your armor,” she said.

空乘人员工会协会员工援助项目主任希瑟·希利说，公众可能错误地认为空乘人员不会受到飞行带来的情感创伤。随着时间推移，重复发生的事件会加重可怕经历的影响，任何人都是这样。“与其说每件事都在加固你的盔甲，不如说它们都在给你的盔甲增添裂缝，”她说。

While emergency workers, such as paramedics and police officers, are often offered alternative work environments where they can regain resiliency after traumatic incidents, Ms. Healy said, flight attendants don’t have that same recovery period protocol. “It’s get back on the plane or don’t.”

希利说，医护人员和警察等急救人员经常会被提供在其他环境中工作的机会，让他们在创伤事件发生后重新得到复原能力，但空乘人员没有同样的恢复期规定。“要么回到飞机上，要么不回。”

‘I wish I could say I’m much improved, but I’m not.’

“我希望能说我有了很大进展，但事实并非如此。”

For some, the trauma endures for years, on planes and off. On a flight from Boston to Chicago in 2016, the aircraft that Emma Lazaroff was on went dark. The pilot, over the intercom, urgently told flight attendants to take their seats, and the plane started shaking and loudly rattling. It took what felt like a nosedive. “We were thrown against our seats,” Ms. Lazaroff said. “Luggage was all over the cabin. Everyone thought we were going to die.” After about five minutes of chaos, the plane seemed to ascend, and the black sky outside the windows revealed a sunset. The flight landed safely.

对一些人来说，这种创伤会持续多年，无论是在飞机上还是在飞机下。2016年，在从波士顿飞往芝加哥的航班上，艾玛·拉扎罗夫乘坐的飞机突然暗了下来。飞行员通过对讲机紧急通知空乘人员就座，飞机开始摇晃，发出巨大的响声。飞机感觉像在俯冲。“我们被甩到座位上，”拉扎罗夫说。“机舱里到处都是行李。每个人都以为自己会死。”经过大约五分钟的混乱，飞机似乎在上升，窗外黑色的天空渐渐露出了夕阳。飞机安全着陆了。

Ms. Lazaroff, now 32, doesn’t know what caused the incident — the pilot didn’t tell passengers, and the airline wouldn’t tell her — but it has caused severe and lasting repercussions. Shortly after the flight, she started experiencing panic attacks, flashbacks, nightmares and nausea, which persist to this day. This year, she was finally diagnosed with PTSD; Xanax helps her fly. “I’m much more irritable generally,” Ms. Lazaroff said. “I have a very exaggerated startle response — if someone puts a cup down, it’ll make me shriek.”

今年32岁的拉扎罗夫不知道事故的原因——飞行员没有告诉乘客，航空公司也没有告诉她——但这件事已经造成了严重而持久的影响。飞行后不久，她开始出现惊恐发作、闪回、噩梦和恶心的症状，这些症状一直持续到今天。今年，她终于被诊断出患有创伤后应激障碍；阿普唑仑有助于她的继续飞行。“总的来说，我比以前易怒得多，”拉扎罗夫说。“我有一种非常夸张的惊吓反应——如果有人放下一只杯子，我会吓得尖叫。”

Jacob Morton, 35, said a 2016 flight from St. Louis to Los Angeles was “burned in my brain.” A few minutes after takeoff, he heard what sounded like an explosion. With a background in aerospace engineering and a previous job in aircraft design, he correctly guessed that the plane had hit a bird, which he knew was a benign occurrence that pilots are trained for. But when the engine stopped, and he smelled smoke, and the pilot instructed flight attendants to assume the brace position, everyone panicked — and so did he. “Ever since then, I just grip the seat and white-knuckle through every takeoff,” he said. He keeps an eye on speed and altitude, which provide comfort thanks to his knowledge of flight mechanics, but that’s all he can do. “I just grit my teeth and get through it,” he said.

今年35岁的雅各布·莫顿说，2016年从圣路易斯飞往洛杉矶的航班“在我的脑海里烙下了印记”。飞机起飞几分钟后，他听到了类似爆炸声的声音。凭借航空航天工程的背景和之前的飞机设计工作，他正确地猜出飞机撞上了一只鸟，他知道这种情况并不严重，飞行员都接受过这方面的训练。但当引擎停止运转，他闻到了烟味，飞行员指示空乘人员做好准备时，每个人都惊慌失措——他也一样。“从那以后，每次起飞我都紧紧抓住座位，紧张得发抖，”他说。他会一直关注速度和高度，这得益于他对飞行力学的了解，但他能做的也只有这些。“我只是咬紧牙关熬过去，”他说。

Marna Gatlin, 61, has been flying since childhood. (Her grandfather was a pilot who survived a plane crash.) She said she soured on it in her 20s after two incidents — one extreme bout of turbulence and an issue with a plane’s hydraulics system that prompted the pilot to instruct passengers to assume a crash position. The flight landed “hard and fast,” she said, but safely.

今年61岁的玛娜·加特林从小就开始坐飞机。她的祖父是一名飞行员，在一次飞机失事中幸存。她说，20多岁的时候，她经历了两次事故，一次是剧烈的湍流，另一次是飞机液压系统出现问题，导致飞行员指示乘客采取坠机姿势。她说，那一次，飞机着陆“又猛又快”，但是很安全。

The Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001 further entrenched her fears. “That brought on a whole new psychological barrier of anxiety for me,” she said. “I stopped flying.” Not wanting her son to inherit her trauma, in 2008, Ms. Gatlin attended therapy sessions to be able to take her family to San Francisco. She was petrified, but made it.

2001年的9·11恐怖袭击进一步加深了她的恐惧。“这给我带来了全新的焦虑心理障碍，”她说。“我不再坐飞机了。”2008年，为了不让儿子继承她的创伤，加特林参加了心理治疗，以便能带全家去旧金山。她十分恐惧，但还是挺过来了。

Ms. Gatlin has tried plenty of treatments over the years, including hypnosis and a program for fearful fliers she couldn’t finish because it required boarding a short flight. She even consulted a psychic, who told her she experienced a crash in a previous life.

加特林多年来尝试了很多治疗方法，包括催眠和一个针对害怕飞行者的项目，她没能完成该项目，因为需要登上短途航班。她甚至咨询了一位灵媒，后者告诉她，她在前世经历过一次飞机失事。

“I wish I could say I am much improved, but I’m not,” she said.

“我希望能说我有了很大进展，但事实并非如此，”她说。

She now flies occasionally, but not comfortably, thanks to her own system: an Ativan before the airport and breathing exercises on the plane. She books the earliest flight possible, because there’s less turbulence in the morning, and spends the first day at her destination decompressing in the hotel.

她现在偶尔也坐飞机，虽然还是放松不下来，这要归功于她有了自己的一套方式：在来到机场之前吃一片安定，在飞机上做呼吸练习。她尽可能预定最早的航班，因为早上的颠簸少一些。到达目的地的第一天，她会在酒店里减压。

“I’m emotionally wiped out,” she said. “And that is just the nature of the beast.”

“我的情绪被掏空了，”她说。“这种心病就是这样的。”