stevenberlinjohnson.com: In Which The Blogger Has A Mild Freakout On The Delta Shuttle

I've probably flown more miles in the past two years than I did in the previous ten, but for all the annoyances of that travel, my trips over that period have been entirely free of the post-9/11 airplane anxiety that I experienced for the first year or so after the attacks. But this Sunday, flying down to DC on the shuttle, I had a classic relapse, no doubt triggered by the Gatorade bomb plot. Here's what happened: I'm sitting two rows behind one of the emergency exit rows, and about two minutes before the door is going to be shut, a woman with a British passport sitting in the exit row suddenly gets up and says something to the flight attendant -- I vaguely hear something about missing her friend -- and then grabs her bag and walks off the plane, after conferring briefly with the attendants at the very front of the aircraft.

This alone is pretty weird; I think to myself: are people allowed to leave the plane after they've boarded? And then I notice that none of the flight attendants comes to check her seat to see if she's left anything suspicious behind. But still, I'm not really worried, until a guy sitting in another row -- who also has a British passport (for some reason they were both still holding their passports visibly) -- gets up from his seat across the aisle, and sits down in the seat that the woman had left.

It's not much, I know, but it was enough to set off a mild panic attack, which reached almost comical heights when I peered over the top of the seats, and saw that the guy was reading a USA Today story about the new ban on liquids and gels.

The maddening thing about the whole experience was the internal debate that unfolded over the next few minutes. My natural inclination in any slightly awkward public situation is to not say anything and just let whatever is bothering me slide. But then I thought: if I have a second of consciousness between the explosion and my death, the second is going to be filled with one incredibly annoying thought: I can't believe I'm going to die and leave my wife and kids alone for the rest of their lives because I was too bashful to press the flight attendant button.

I decided to keep mum nevertheless. I started to feel a little better a few minutes into the flight when I noticed that the guy had fallen asleep against the window. I know these terrorists are committed to martyrdom, but somehow a pre-detonation nap seemed a little unlikely.

And I'm happy to report that the plane did not in fact explode. So I guess I was right to keep my suspicions to myself.

The Basics

I'm a father of three boys, husband of one wife, and author of seven books, and co-founder of three web sites. We spend most of the year in Marin County, California though I'm on the road a lot giving talks. (You can see the full story here.) Personal correspondence should go to sbeej at earthlink dot net. Media requests should go to Matthew.Venzon at us.penguingroup dot com. If you're interested in having me speak at an event, drop a line to Wesley Neff at the Leigh Bureau (WesN at Leighbureau dot com.)

My Books

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
An exploration of environments that lead to breakthrough innovation, in science, technology, business, and the arts. I conceived it as the closing book in a trilogy on innovative thinking, after Ghost Map and Invention. But in a way, it completes an investigation that runs through all the books. Sold more copies in hardcover than anything else I've written.
The Invention of Air
The story of the British radical chemist Joseph Priestley, who ended up having a Zelig-like role in the American Revolution. My version of a founding fathers book, and a reminder that most of the Enlightenment was driven by open source ideals.
The Ghost Map
The latest: the story of a terrifying outbreak of cholera in 1854 London 1854 that ended up changing the world. An idea book wrapped around a page-turner. I like to think of it as a sequel to Emergence if Emergence had been a disease thriller. You can see a trailer for the book here.
Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
The title says it all. This one sparked a slightly insane international conversation about the state of pop culture -- and particularly games. There were more than a few dissenters, but the response was more positive than I had expected. And it got me on The Daily Show, which made it all worthwhile.
Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
My first best-seller, and the only book I've written in which I appear as a recurring character, subjecting myself to a battery of humiliating brain scans. The last chapter on Freud and the neuroscientific model of the mind is one of my personal favorites.
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
The story of bottom-up intelligence, from slime mold to Slashdot. Probably the most critically well-received all my books, and the one that has influenced the most eclectic mix of fields: political campaigns, web business models, urban planning, the war on terror.
Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate
My first. The book I wrote instead of finishing my dissertation. Still in print almost a decade later, and still relevant, I think. But I haven't read it in a while, so who knows what's in there!

Comments

I can understand you remain mute about your suspicions. I did it myself a few times in the past flying from different places here in Europe with arabs and conspicuous individuals having strange behaviour. We always hope it is just our paranoic fears, or we are already used to live with the terror? I wonder...

Posted by: marina | August 15, 2006 at 10:13 AM

But when do you ride on the New York City subway system, for example, and not see something a bit odd? We're supposed to "see something, say something" but having zero tolerance for suspicious behavior isn't really practical in most environments. So just how much and what kind of weird stuff are we supposed to let pass? We'd likely be better off arming the public with information on terrorist-related behaviors, based how they've been known to have acted in the past.

Posted by: Nancy Scola | August 15, 2006 at 10:33 AM

Wait, so the plane didn't explode?

Posted by: Rob | August 15, 2006 at 10:48 AM

Symptoms of ongoing anxiety...: extra "L"s (war is L, isn't it?).

I guess at this point I'd rather be wrong and abjectly apologetic, than ignore a strong intuition.

No one wants to fly with me now, do they? :(

Posted by: Pascale Soleil | August 15, 2006 at 10:58 AM

Well, it never hurts to ask the attendant, "What just happened? Why is that lady leaving?" Perhaps even suggest outright, "I hope she didn't leave anything behind." I'd rather be the polite, affable, and slightly paranoid customer than to simply stew in my own panic. It is unfortunate, though, that our alarms more finely tuned to these sorts of odd situations.

Posted by: Mark Larson | August 15, 2006 at 09:24 PM

I'm of two minds about this. Hiowever, I think that, for the sake of argument, I'm going to fall on the side of saying you actually SHOULD have pressed the attendant button, if for no other reason that to remind the flight attendants of their duty. Remember that their job is not just to serve drinks and do the security demo (which still bewilders me: a flotation device on cross country trip?) but also to ensure that passenger are safe and secure. Under the new model, that includes ensuring that scenarios like the one you witnessed are at least cursorily investigated.

In a way, this points to the wider problem with the US' approach to counter-terrorism: focus on cissors and nail clippers but be blind to abnormal behavior. John Tierney's column in Yesterday's NY Times (sitting behind the pay wall at http://select.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/opinion/15Tierney.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fJohn%20Tierney ) talks about the TSA's approach to security and you might be interested in reading it as it mirrors, to some extent, your experience.

Posted by: Tristan Louis | August 16, 2006 at 06:42 AM

Well isn't the theory of airport security in this country to secure a whole area of the airport (called the sterile area) can move on and off airplanes without having to undergo individual security searches at each gate? Its a matter of efficiency and cost savings to secure the whole area.

Posted by: nickb | August 17, 2006 at 09:59 PM

I have been through this once in the last couple months with other people flying looking at each other, but somebody finally asked about the situation. At this point I think I am asking or bring it up to someone's attention. The kid wife thing ran through my head too.

Where did we get so concerned about manners and being polite that we forget about safety? Having lived in England during the times of IRA bombings (and being taken by airport security for being a wanted IRA bomber) has not greatly improve my ability to say some thing on an airline. I get off busses in the U.S. when a lunch box is left (sometimes telling the driver) and doing the same on Metro trains, mostly with others who have lived outside the U.S. in countries that have been volatile.

Posted by: vanderwal | August 18, 2006 at 03:19 PM

I ask myself: "What are the odds?" And I am most often comforted.

Posted by: judson | August 22, 2006 at 12:01 PM

Yes, that's right. Buy into the fear.

Posted by: Ben | August 30, 2006 at 08:59 PM

I'm currently overcoming a relatively sudden fear of flying (been using planes for decades - have flown a 2-seater - suddenly, a few months ago, BAM, terrified), and this is exactly what I experience.
A string of little things that suddenly get together and propagate in my mind, and suddenly I've the imagination of Stephen King in there, overclocking, and my sense of calm is like a broken heat-sink.
And the correct approach is yours: the internal dialogue. I think mine is an internal shouting-match, but hey, if my brain goes deaf for a while, it might just help....

Posted by: Mikeachim | September 15, 2006 at 06:55 PM