I always pay some attention to those announcements even though I would be like the woman on the US Air flight who almost sank the plane by trying to open the rear door.

I ALWAYS re-read the safety card as if I’ve never seen it before, and I have never wavered from that, not even back before they invented jet engines. Flying is so frightening that paying attention to safety instructions makes up the only control you can exert over the experience. I like to see how far I am from the exit door and plan my moves. I tell myself, "If anything happens, you must abandon your book, your carry-on bag and your coat. Just get out!" But sometimes, if I am jammed in at the back, I give up and say Kismet. 

The worst thing about flying isn’t the fear of crashing and dying. The worst thing is having the pilot constantly interrupt your reverie, your book, your movie with stupid comments that add nothing to your flight experience.

P.S. This is a very good time to point out that in the matter of the flight attendants on the recent Hudson River miracle landing, it is gratifying to know that the three of them were all women over 50. The very kind of brave women who read the wOw site. And just think, only a few years ago you had to be young, beautiful and single to be a flight attendant.

Click here on this text to read my New York Post column.

I always have listened to flight instructions; I’m very interested in what you’re supposed to do in case of emergency and where the life jackets are. But the Miracle on the Hudson was just that. I doubt that it will be repeated very soon, so it didn’t change my attention span when I board a flight.

I have been flying so much all my life, I hide a couple of wings I have grown under my arms. I always listen to instructions. Planes are not all alike. I am always checking what they say, where everything is. I try not to appear as nutty as I am when I am on planes. My husband ran airlines and never trusted a plane or a pilot or fate. We were controlled but unhappy from the appearance of the first cloud, from the first shake.

I don’t like the airbus. French pilots have crashed a few. It took the calm and divinely guided Captain  Chesley B. Sullenberger III to land  his airbus safely on water. In future, I will try to fly only on planes that he is piloting. The odds are low that geese would fly into his planes twice, and if they succeed, he’ll know what to do. That may take me to North Carolina more than I had planned, but you can’t be too safe. Otherwise: stay off the airbus. And read the damn instructions.

I learned from it not to wear high heels on an airplane. But I guess I already knew that.

I have never been afraid of flying, maybe because in our little town, planes were the fastest way out to the wider world. In those days, flying was a lot cheaper. It was an agricultural community, and everybody flew and owned little planes. At one point, my father, who had learned to fly in the Air Force, had four. I flew with him the first time when I was barely three months old. We also had a little airport, anchored by Southern Airways (which morphed into Republic which became Northwest which is about to be Delta). I felt so cool the first time I flew alone commercially, at eight. People still dressed up to fly and everybody was smoking and drinking and I felt about 35.

I do read the stuff that tells you what to do, just in case. My father survived a private plane crash about 25 years ago, and recently I was flying with him on a little commercial commuter jet, and we were in the exit row, and when the stewardess asked us if we could handle opening the emergency exit, he grinned and said, "Yep, I’ve done it." She looked very startled and all the people within earshot looked even more shook-up. People clearly don’t like to be reminded of the possibility of going down.

I never listen. I fly a great deal. I know the odds are in my favor and I know how to spell exit and I know how to find it.

Yes, I try to harness any ADD-like racing thoughts and listen more carefully to what I used to think were woefully inadequate instructions. It still seems like a corny comedy sketch, but I don’t laugh anymore. Like Liz, I reread the safety card and check out my exit plan. I sometimes make a promise to myself that I will be brave and helpful to other passengers and not trample on anyone. My plan includes stepping back to let mothers/fathers with babies go before me. My fantasy is, I would be so helpful to the crew, I would gain their respect, and perhaps I would be asked to go on MSNBC Rachel Maddow’s show, where I would say I didn’t consider myself a hero – I just did instinctively what needed to be done.

Flew back from L.A. yesterday and was stunned to find myself searching for the life jacket. (For all those water landings over the Rockies.)