A Sudden Fear Of Flying

Throughout my life I never had a fear of flying. I flew to a couple of places and even had to circle around above a hurricane one time until it was safe for us to land. It was never a problem for me until July of 2001.

I was with my ex-husband at the time and it had been a while since we took a vacation and decided we were long overdue. So we called up the travel agent and booked an all-inclusive trip to the Bahamas. Everything was going great until 2 days before we were scheduled to leave. I was lying in bed thinking about our trip, and started to get this feeling like I didn't want to go. This bothered me because I had no idea where this was coming from. Then I realized that I was afraid to get on the plane. I was never afraid to fly before so I couldn't understand why all of a sudden I was feeling this way. All I knew was that I did not want to go. I told my husband how I was feeling and he just brushed it off as me being nervous because it had been such a long time since we went anywhere. I tried to agree with that, but as the time drew near the feeling of fear became so strong it overwhelmed me to the point where I wanted to cancel. My husband was not willing to do that because he said we would lose our deposit and still have to pay the fee for the travel agency. So I tried to ignore these feelings and go on with the trip.

The morning we left for the airport my stomach was in knots, I was sweating, shaking, and had this awful feeling of dread. My husband kept asking me why I felt this way and I couldn't give him any reason. I didn't have a dream, or vision about anything happening, it was just like my body was screaming at me to NOT get on the plane. We got to the airport and I was sitting in the terminal looking out the window, and I remember praying, and begging God to please let us all get there safely. By this time it felt like there was a giant stone right in the middle of my stomach, I couldn't breathe and thought for sure that this was going to be the end.

By the time we boarded, I was physically ill. We took our seats and I was trying to relax and kept praying that we would all be ok. The plane taxied out to the runway and began to pick up speed, before it reached the end of the runway to take off I felt the plane slow down. The captain came on and said a red light came on and he was going to try it again. He turned the plane around, picked up speed to take off and again he slowed down. This happened one more time before he taxied back to the terminal. At that point I was in tears and just wanted to get off the plane. I didn't care about the money or the luggage I just wanted to be in a cab on my way home. My husband looked at me and said, "you knew something was wrong". I told him I had no idea what was wrong or what would happen, I just had an overwhelming sensation of fear, and dread. After about an hour the captain said it was a Hazard light that kept coming on when he was about to take off warning him of a problem he reset the system and we took off without further incident. Of course I could not enjoy my vacation because the only thing on my mind was that I had to get back on a plane to come home.

About 2 months later the 9/11 terror attacks took place and I swore that I would never get on another plane again.

Now I have 2 questions: 1) Was I picking up on the potential danger that could have happened if the pilot did not find out what was wrong? 2) Was that intense fear I felt a sign of what was to come on 9/11?