I’ve spent a lot of time in airports: working overseas, commuting between jobs in other cities (like D.C. and San Francisco) and visiting family around the country. Despite all the miles I’ve flown, I confess, I’m terrified of flying.

I understand aerodynamics and physics of why airplanes get airborne, but I’m just stuck on the fact that it’s a 90 ton piece of metal in the sky.

I’ve been on a jet in New England that suddenly dived then soared back in the air with no explanation. I’ve been on two flights that were just a couple of feet from landing and all of a sudden revved up engines and went back in the air to circle around for another approach (the reasoning, according to one pilot was “insufficient separation”). I’ve landed in an Indonesian airport that had a crashed plane on the side of the runway, which hadn’t been removed a couple of days later when I made my return flight. I’ve also been on a plane where the door wasn’t closed all the way, and we had to immediately make a circle and go back for an emergency landing.

So this event at Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville about a month ago, doesn’t do anything to reassure me.

Sometimes passengers can listen in to the communication between the pilots and the control towers. This is the last thing you want to hear. As many people already know, Louisville had a huge UPS jet crash last Nov. 4 that left 15 people dead, including a 3-year-old girl on the ground.

If a control tower is giving directions to two aircraft with the same call number, one departing and one landing, you should be uneasy about that airport. And when a pilot or a control tower person says, “You guys are gonna get somebody killed,” you better hope that there was an all-hands meeting the next day where pilots and controllers discuss ways to make sure this never happens again.

I will be flying out of Louisville next week for a trip to Phoenix. Yikes!