Go ahead,fly

Everyone knows that flying in a plane is potentially dangerousjust as everyone knows that climbing Mount Everest is dangerous.

Everyone knows that flying in a plane is potentially dangerousjust as everyone knows that climbing Mount Everest is dangerous. What goes up must come down; and if you put yourself at a great height,you put yourself at risk of falling,though the odds of perishing in a plane crash are one in ten million.

Nearly all of the millions of flights that take off and land each year proceed safely,without incident. Any number of accidents can but rarely do put a flight in jeopardy: from engine failure,to the sudden apparition of a flock of geese,to electrical storms,to ice,to air pockets. But beginning with the 9/11 attacks,the greatest assault on faith in air travel has come not from accidents but from intentional acts of sabotage by a handful of homicidal malefactors. The ripple effect of public panic at the notion that any passenger on any plane could be a human time bomb has rattled the airline industry and compromised the freedom of travel that the worlds citizens previously enjoyed.

Two weeks ago,one man with a grievance and exploding underpants boarded a plane for Detroit. This week,the USs attention and travel plans in the new year are held captive,as the battered American airline industry reels.

The risk of a terrorist disruption of a flight is infinitesimal,but public perception of that risk can be outsize and emotionalunderstandably so. Terrorists,like bogeymen,are frightening even when they dont exist; and when they do appear in broad daylight,citizens who learn that the government failed to shield them from menace feel vulnerable and outraged.

In the wake of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabs attempted sabotage,government and air travel officials are scrambling to reassure the citizenryinvestigating information-sharing deficits,suggesting rapid deployment of full-body magnetic resonance scans a controversial and expensive measure and adding blankets and bathroom visits to the perks that air travellers may no longer expect in the age of high anxiety.

And yet,from the point of view of the individual traveller,a risk-free flight has never existed; nor has a risk-free car trip; nor a risk-free ocean liner voyage; nor a risk-free bike ride. To be alive is to face risks.

Since 9/11/2001 or since 12/22/2001 when Richard Reid attempted to blow up a Boeing 767 between Paris and Miami by detonating his sneakers,how many grandmothers,how many parents,how many people of whatever age,sex,or familial connection,have avoided air travel out of fear,or cautioned their friends and relatives against it? The risks of air travel continue to be minuscule,while the advantages of exploring other countries remain precious and inarguable.

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Still,a fortress mentality settles in each time a new instance of attempted airborne thuggery hits the airwaves. In the wake of alarming headlines,an obstacle course of cumbersome but laudable security precautions unrolls at airports,leading many of the earths seven-billion-odd inhabitants to resolve to remain earthbound as much as possible. One goal of terrorists is to make ordinary people afraid to leave their homes and interact with the wider world. Attacks on individual courage may leave no scars,but that does not mean they do no damage.

In this last decade,nobody can tally the number of flights not taken,adventures not dared,countries not visited,because of the publics anxieties about air travel. In 2005,rebelling against my own fears of travelling to sections of the globe that had come to seem perilous,I booked a flight to Syria and Lebanon to visit journalist friends who were living there. Days before my flight left Kennedy Airport,Syria revealed it had halted military and intelligence cooperation with the US. My adrenalin racing,I packed,in anticipation mingled with dread. In the waiting room at the planes gate,as I sat amid women in hijab and children with stuffed animals and pink backpacks,I took half an Ambien to dim my worries. My companion,meanwhile,was watching 24 on a laptop; and as Kiefer Sutherland blew away one Arab bad guy after another,a family moved a few seats away from us,because we were so scary.

Im grateful that I overcame my cowardice and traveled to Damascusthe most fascinating,culturally diverse city Ive ever visitedand to Baalbek,in Lebanon,which Alexander the Great called Heliopolis and which is now home to the ruins of great temples the Romans erected beginning in the first century B.C.

In 2010,potential dangers will attach to every flight. Does that mean everyone should just stay put? How,then,to proceed? Perhaps theres only ever been one trick to keeping ones cool in challenging circumstances,the same one the British adventurer T. E. Lawrence offers for dealing with pain in David Leans film Lawrence of Arabia,set a century ago,in another war. The trick,he says,is not minding.