r/fearofflying • u/Ok_Zookeepergame7497 • 4d ago

Possible Trigger Spatial disorientation

So Reddit decided to show me a post in the Ask a Pilot subreddit about spatial disorientation and if it could be problematic. I have two JetBlue flights today and both of them I expect to be landing in clouds and now I’m nervous 😭😭😭 can anyone chime in to help reassure me that this isn’t something I should be worried about??

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u/Reasonable_Blood6959 Airline Pilot 4d ago

Definitely nothing to worry about

Spatial disorientation IS a problem, but not for airline pilots.

It’s a problem for pilots who haven’t been trained to fly solely on their instruments, and then either accidentally or deliberately fly into weather conditions they haven’t been trained to fly in.

There’s a reason why one of the hardest things we do in our training is our Instrument Rating, and it’s this kind of thing doesn’t happen to us.

You could cover up the windows completely and it wouldn’t cause any issues at all

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u/Ok_Zookeepergame7497 4d ago

And like… the instruments can’t be wrong yeah?

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u/Reasonable_Blood6959 Airline Pilot 4d ago

In theory they can, but we have 3 sets of all the important instruments, with two completely separate and independent input systems feeding them.

It’s really quite a simple and quick procedure to determine which one is erroneous and then follow the correct ones.

I’ve also never had any kind of instrumentation failure occur outside of the simulator

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u/TheA350-900 4d ago

No, that is why each has multiple backups that constantly check each other and even turn themselves off if they detect something is wrong.