d o. And nothing came to mind. A ll I
could remember was one thing: I f yo u
ca n’t take ca re of yo u r s e l f, let yo u r
buddy take ca re of yo u . I let my hand
f a ll back to my side, and I just stood
t h e re . ”
This is a textb o ok example of p a n i c .
In that mom e n t , M o rph ew stopped
t h i n k i n g. She forgot that she had an-
other source of a i r, one
that worked
p e rfe c t ly well and that, m oments before,
she had taken out of her mouth. She
f o r got that her partner had a working
air supply as well , w h i ch could easily
be share d , and she forgot that gra b b i n g
her part n e r’s regulator would imperi l
both of t h e m .A ll she had was her most
basic instinct:
get air
. St ress wipes out
s h o rt - t e rm memory. People
with lots
o f e x p e rience tend not to panic, b e -
cause when the stress suppresses their
s h o rt - t e rm memory t h ey still have som e
residue of e x p e rience to draw on . B u t
what did a novice like Morph ew have?
I
s e a rched my mind for what I could do
.
An d
nothing came to mind
.
Panic also causes what psych o l o g i s t s
ca ll perceptual narrow i n g. In one study,
f rom the early seve n t i e s , a group of
subjects were asked to perf o rm a visual-
a c u i ty task while undergoing what
t h ey thought was a sixty-foot dive in
a pre s s u re ch a m b e r. At the same time,
t h ey were asked to push a button
w h e n ever they saw a small light fla s h
on and off in their peri ph e ral vision .
The subjects in the pre s s u re ch a m b e r
had mu ch higher heart rates than the
c
on t rol gro u p, i n d i cating that they
w e re under stre s s . That stress didn’t af-
fect their accura cy at the visual-acuity
t a s k ,b u tt h ey were on ly half as good as
the con t rol group at picking up the
p e ri ph e ral light. “You tend to focus or
obsess on one thing, ” M o rph ew says .
“T h e re’s a famous airplane example,
w h e re the landing light went off, a n d
the pilots had no way of k n owing if t h e
landing gear was dow n . The pilots
w e re so focussed on that light that no
one noticed the autopilot had been dis-
e n g a g e d , and they crashed the plane.”
M o rph ew re a ched for her buddy’s air
s u p p ly because it was
the on ly air sup-
p ly she could see.
Pa n i c , in this sense, is the opposite
o f ch ok i n g. C h oking is about think-
ing too mu ch . Panic is about thinking
too little. C h oking is about loss o f i n-
s t i n c t . Panic is reve r s i on to instinct.
T h ey may look the same, but they are
w o rlds apart .
W
hy does this distinction mat-
ter? In some instances, it doesn’t
mu ch .I f you lose a close tennis match ,
i t’s of little moment whether you ch ok e d
or panick e d ; either way, you lost. B u t
t h e re are cl e a rly cases when
h o w
f a i l u re
happens is central to understanding
w h y
f a i l u re happens.
Ta k e the plane crash in which John F.
K e n n e d y, J r. , was killed last summer.
The details of the flight are well know n .
On a
Fri d ay evening last July, Kennedy
t o ok off with his wife and sister-in-
law for Mart h a’s Vi n ey a rd . The night
was hazy, and Kennedy flew along the
C onnecticut coastline, using the trail of
lights below him as a guide. At We s -
t e rly, Rhode Island, he left the shore -
l i n e, heading straight out over Rhode
Island So u n d , and at that point, a p p a r-
e n t ly disoriented by the darkness and
h a ze, he began a series of c u rious ma-
n e u ve r s : He
banked his plane to the
ri g h t , f a rther out into the ocean, a n d
then to the left . He climbed and de-
s c e n d e d . He sped up and slowed dow n .
Just a few miles from his destination ,
Kennedy lost con t rol of the plane, and
it crashed into the ocean.
K e n n e d y’s mistake, in tech n i cal term s ,
was that he failed to keep his wings leve l .
That was cri t i ca l ,b e cause when a plane
banks to one side it begins to turn and
its wings lose some of their ve rt i cal
l i ft . Le ft unch e ck e d , this process accel-
e ra t e s . The angle of the bank incre a s e s ,
the turn gets
sharper and sharp e r, a n d
the plane starts to dive tow a rd the
g round in an eve r - n a r rowing cork s c rew.
Pilots ca ll this the gra vey a rd spira l . An d
w hy didn’t Kennedy stop the dive? Be-
ca u s e, in times o f l ow visibility and high
s t re s s , keeping your wings leve l — i n-
d e e d , even knowing whether you are in a
g ra vey a rd spira l — t u rns out to be sur-
p ri s i n g ly diffic u l t . Kennedy failed under
p re s s u re .
Had Kennedy been flying during the
d ay or with a clear moon , he would have
been fin e . I f you are the pilot, l o ok i n g
s t raight ahead from the cock p i t , t h e
angle of your wings will be obvious from
the straight line of the hori zon in front
o f yo u . But when it’s dark outside the
h o ri zon disappears. T h e re is no exter-
8 8
THE NEW YO R K E R, AUG UST 21 & 28, 2000