Fear of Flying: 1 in 6 Are in White-Knuckle Club : Airplane knowledge and relaxation can help passengers overcome phobias and panic attacks.

Mary Rietta remembers in vivid detail her first airplane flight, a family trip to Texas to visit relatives when she was 12 years old. Soon after the boarding call, Mary bounded past the gate enroute to the plane. Then she stopped short, suddenly and inexplicably paralyzed by fear.

“My family had to pry my hands away from the doorway,” recalls Rietta, now a 26-year-old La Crescenta resident. “They had to drag me onto the plane.”

Over the years, she’s learned to cope by distracting herself with a good book and listening to reassurances from her husband, a fearless flyer. But she is still no fan of flying.

Experts estimate that 1 in 6 Americans is afraid of flying. Some say females outnumber males 2-1 as fearful fliers; others aren’t convinced, pointing out that men may tough out trips tight-lipped but anxious, perhaps turning to the drink cart for artificial courage.

Fear of flying often surfaces around age 27, surveys find, and many top-level executives are long-term, secret members of this white-knuckle enclave.

As more is learned about what makes passengers nervous, many experts now classify fearful fliers into two groups: the phobic fliers and the panic fliers. Treatment is tailored to specific fears.

“Phobic fliers are afraid of crashing and dying,” explained Ron Doctor, a professor of psychology at Cal State Northridge, and director of the Freedom to Fly program (for information, call 310-836-6445).

“Panic fliers are not so much afraid of crashing but of having panic attacks,” Doctor added. “They are afraid of themselves.” They may have a sudden rush of distressing physical symptoms, he said, such as a racing heartbeat or the feeling they are about to have a heart attack.

About 80% of fliers are in the phobic category, Doctor estimates. But another expert, psychologist Reid Wilson of Chapel Hill, N.C., said there are no good statistics to determine which group is more common. And, he added, some people might be mainly phobic fliers but share some characteristics with panic fliers.

A therapist needs to determine the root of a flyer’s fears early in treatment, said Janed Sax, a Fountain Valley psychotherapist who counsels nervous air passengers. “When someone comes in (for counseling), I always want to know if this is a simple phobia, perhaps the result of a bad experience, or if it is part of panic disorder,” Sax said.

The two groups differ in many ways. “Panic fliers, for instance, will often have trouble with the social setting of a plane,” Doctor said. They might be concerned, for instance, about embarrassing themselves in front of people if they have a panic attack.

Phobics are nervous but often sociable. “Phobics will often admit their fears openly,” Doctor said. They’re the passengers who might squeeze the hands of complete strangers on takeoff or confess their fears to a seatmate they’ve just met.

Programs to help fearful passengers debuted more than a decade ago, but they have become more widespread in recent years. Some programs are airport-based; others meet in classrooms. One new audio-tape program can be completed at home and includes flash cards for the plane trip.

Aviation education is at the crux of many fearful-flyer programs. When passengers learn how a plane stays up in the air and what turbulence is, it’s easier to relax, especially for phobic fliers. Becoming familiar with typical sounds heard during takeoff and flight can calm nerves, too. Programs are often conducted on an airplane or at the airport, with program directors reasoning that such exposure can help gradually desensitize the worriers.

A process called “thought stopping” can help, too. Instead of entertaining disastrous thoughts such as, “This plane is heavy; nothing is holding it up,” passengers learn to switch to reality-based thoughts: “This plane is designed to stay up. It has lift.”

Statistics can help ease fears about crashing. A spokeswoman for American Airlines’ AirBorn program, for instance, said students learn that about six times as many people die in train accidents annually as on commercial airlines. (For information on the AirBorn program, call 800-451-5106.)

Learning simple relaxation skills can also help quell anxiety, said Carol Stauffer, a psychotherapist and consultant who developed USAir’s Fearful Fliers Program in 1975 and still directs it. “You can’t be panicky and relaxed at the same time,” she said. To help passengers relax, she teaches them deep muscle relaxation, among other techniques.

In the USAir program, the last class is a one-hour flight. (The seven-week USAir program visits cities across the country; it is scheduled for Los Angeles beginning Jan. 13. For more information, call 412-366-8112).

Panic fliers can also be helped by learning the same relaxation-training and other skills taught to phobic fliers, experts said. But they must first focus on their related fears, which often include fear of enclosed spaces and fear of losing control.

“Fear of flying is often the last thing (for panic fliers) to deal with before feeling fully recovered,” Doctor said. For panic fliers, short-term medication such as anti-anxiety drugs can help, too. “I try to get people started on it a week or so before (the flight),” Doctor said.

Fearful fliers often turn to alcohol to calm down, but Wilson advises passengers not to do so. “Alcohol is a central nervous sysem depressant. It might reduce anxiety, but it tends to get out of hand,” he said. A better alternative, he believes, is carefully prescribed medication.

Passengers who can’t make it to formal classes now have the option of an at-home program. “Achieving Comfortable Flight,” introduced last year, includes audio tapes, educational booklets and flash cards. It’s the brainchild of Wilson, who designed a similar program for a major airline, and T.W. Cummings, a pilot with 31 years of airline experience. (For information, call 800-394-2299.)

Like the airport- or classroom-based programs, the at-home alternative emphasizes education and personal strategies to quell anxiety. Tapes include breathing exercises and an in-depth guide to 75 typical sights and sounds on an aircraft. Supplementary flash cards can be taken on board. Printed on the cards are self-help strategies, such as 10 ways to improve physical comfort aloft.

Treatment has a high success rate, experts claim. In a two-year follow-up of passengers who graduated from his Freedom to Fly program, Doctor found that 85% or more could fly without undue anxiety. Other programs cite comparable success rates. Graduates might not skip gleefully to their assigned seats, but they get where they need or want to go.