Over the past month, four deadly plane crashes have surprised and shocked Americans everywhere. These crashes are only the most major of a string of several smaller airline mishaps happening around the country. With much at stake for airlines and customers alike, this new trend has caused anxiety for many—but for Audrey G., a sophomore in the nursing program at Calvin, this issue is much more personal.

Audrey expressed concern and unease for her mother, who is a flight attendant with major airlines like American and Delta. The largest of the recent crashes was an American Airlines plane — its midair collision with an Army helicopter killed 67 people.

“She had to go to therapy for it, and she’s really scared to go back [to her job],” Audrey explained. “She’s not scared of crashing, because flying is actually so safe. It’s more because she knew what was going on in those flight attendants’ minds when they crashed. She knew what they were saying when the plane was going down. She knew what they were doing. She knew the exact position they were sitting in.”

There are speculations that the uptick in plane crashes as of late has some connection to the Trump administration’s decision to fire hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees, which has led to a shortage of air traffic controllers. Without a proper air traffic control system, the chances of an airline accident increase. Trump has been encouraged by union members and lawmakers to pull back on job cuts at the FAA, but the resolution to this issue remains unseen.

There’s no need to panic over the safety of air travel; experts still maintain that flying is the safest mode of transportation. The risk of dying on a flight is still close to none—far safer than driving, where the odds of suffering a fatal accident are one in 95.

But while that statistic may be a comforting one, it doesn’t erase the stress for Audrey, who just wants to make sure her mother stays safe.

“Any day, any flight she’s on, she could fricking crash and die,” she said. “That’s kind of scary. It could have been her.”

Audrey isn’t the only one at Calvin who is worried about flying in the wake of recent incidents. Spring Break is coming up, and flying during breaks is a big part of college life for Calvin’s international students, who make up 13% of the student body. Another group of frequent flyers are students from out of state. Many of these students fly home or to visit friends in other states. The recent plane crashes have raised concerns among students about how trustworthy flying really is.

Emma Dunn, in her second year studying psychology at Calvin, is having second thoughts about an upcoming flight she is scheduled to take to California. 

“You hear about a lot more plane crashes than you do safe landings,” Dunn said. But she still felt like air travel accidents were following each other at an unusually high rate recently.

“That definitely freaks me out,” she admitted. “Just wondering why these, like, freak accidents are happening.”

Chimes policy is to refer to sources by last name on second reference. The references to Audrey G. in this story look different due to airline confidentiality policies.