A retired headteacher who suffered from aerophobia for 17 years has found an unusual cure: listening to K-pop band BTS. Debbie Adamson, 67, from Southampton, Hampshire, was so terrified of flying that she once deliberately lost her boarding pass at Gatwick airport to avoid a family trip to Orlando, Florida.
Fear started after terrifying flight
Her phobia began during a student flight from Budapest, which she described as "the world's worst flight." The plane bounced on landing, sparks flew from the wing tips, and it lurched. "It was your horror come true," she said. From then on, she believed every plane she boarded would crash.
Desperate attempts to avoid flying
Despite her fear, she forced herself on eight trips to Disneyland Florida with her "theme park addict" husband and three children. Cabin crew often had to console her as she "howled," and she held her husband so tightly that he came off flights with "permanent arthritis" in his hands. In one desperate attempt to avoid a flight, she hid her boarding pass in a magazine at WHSmith at Gatwick. When she told airport staff she had lost it, hoping to be sent home, they simply printed a new one. She cried solid for three hours.
Turning point: learning and BTS
After quitting flying in 2008, she later learned how planes work from a pilot friend and joined a Facebook support group. In 2025, she booked a trip to Santorini for her 40th wedding anniversary. On that flight, she discovered that listening to a "bulletproof" playlist of her favorite BTS songs helped calm her sensory overload. She shut her eyes during take-off and held on tightly, then began to rationalize her fear.
Now flying without fear
She flew to Orlando again last year and "didn't bat an eyelid" even during turbulence. When a bumpy flight occurred, she laughed as Bruce Springsteen played. "I'm completely different," she said. "I'd never say I'm cured but having that self-awareness to think 'I'm going to take out those three senses and I'm going to give myself permission to not be frightened'." She now hopes to spread awareness about aerophobia, which affects about one in 10 people, and encourage others to "give themselves permission to not be frightened."
