It stood on the cracked pavement painted white with gold and blue trim and the KSU symbol on its tail.

"This is ours. It's a Cessna 172," said Kevin Hart, my pilot and instructor.

We opened the compact doors of the Cessna and climbed in, Hart on the left and me on the right of the controls. He started the engine, while explaining that pilots steer with pedals on the floor of the cockpit when the airplane is on the ground.

Our four-seater plane rounded the Kent State Airport to the runway. Increasing speed and lifting off at 60 knots, the Cessna shook slightly from winds blowing from the west. And we were airborne.

Hart told me to hold the yoke: the U-shaped steering mechanism of the plane.

The muscles in both my arms tensed as I pulled out on the yoke to point the nose upward. The small aircraft ascended until it reached 2,000 feet. The humming engine pumped, full throttle.

"See the horizon disappearing as you pull up?" Hart asked into the mouthpiece of the intercom headset. Already sitting up straight, I had to stretch my neck to peer over the control panel and out of the slightly bubbled windshield.

"Level it out, and then I want to show you something," Hart said.

He had me pull out the throttle knob, slowing down the plane and bringing the engine to a quiet idle. This was a demonstration of aerodynamic forces acting on the plane. Our plane descended, which is what happens to the lift when power is reduced. The Cessna seemed to hang in the air, suspended.

We waited. I held my breath, my whole body tight with fear.

"You may feel as if the airplane is going to drop right out of the sky," Hart said. "But that isn't what's happening. Planes are gliders. We're gliding."

My knuckles were white from clutching the yoke.

"Are you OK?" Hart asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm just a little nervous. It got so quiet."

Hart told me how to make a level, right turn.

Maintaining the pressure on the yoke, I hesitantly turned it to the right at a 40-degree angle. I had to hold the yoke for a while in that angle to make a wide, smooth turn. Sharp turns can cause the aircraft to jerk.

The plane was tilted on its right side. I turned my head to the right and looked out the window. Only a pane of glass separated me from 2,000 feet of sky. I could see patterns of boxy houses and zig-zagging roads below us.

"Beautiful turn," my instructor said. "Now, start leveling it out."

I gently pushed the yoke to the left. I sat back and let my shoulders drop a little. I could feel the tension leaving my arms.

This was my first flight lesson, and it was certainly thrilling. But piloting an aircraft gave me a new sense of understanding of the immense responsibility that pilots undertake. Passengers of any flight are literally trusting the pilots with their lives. For fearful fliers, not being in control of the flight or aircraft can give them the jitters. Other nervous passengers might suffer from the fear of heights or from the fear of crashing. But experts on flying - a pilot, an instructor, an airplane designer and a therapist - say air travel is safe and passengers can overcome their fears.

The fear of flying can be blamed on an overactive imagination, affected by vivid images from the news media. There are classes, videotapes, cassettes and books designed to help people overcome their phobia of flying.

For 21 years, therapist Carol Stauffer of Pittsburgh has been treating people to overcome their flying phobia. Stauffer says she has treated about 5,000 people with four types of flight phobias: the fear of not being in control of a situation, claustrophobia, fear of heights and fear of crashing.

"We work with the body and the mind," Stauffer says. "No matter what the cause of fear, fearful fliers have to develop a new response to flying."

Stauffer says the two most important tips for anyone who is anxious about flying are to keep your body relaxed and to keep your mind occupied.

Some experienced pilots and instructors say the fear of flying has to do with a lack of proper education. They say that flying isn't dangerous and shouldn't be feared.

"If it was something so dangerous, I would not be in that airplane," says Seth Kornblum, a flight instructor at the KSU airport.

He says fear is due to ignorance. "Not knowing your limitations in any endeavor is dangerous," Kornblum says.

Kevin Hart, chief flight instructor at the campus airport, says flying is extremely safe, despite what the general public perceives. When comparing numbers of car and plane accidents, he says it's still considered safer to fly.

"The news media makes a big deal out of airplane accidents because it's going to sell. Blood and guts are going to sell," Hart says. "When an airplane goes down, there might be 200 to 400 people aboard. The degree of injury and loss of life is greater per occurrence than it would be in an auto accident."

National Transportation Safety Board data reports there were 35,831 more fatal motor vehicle accidents in 1994 than there were fatal general aviation accidents.

"Flying is a very safe mode of travel, as long as you conduct it with a safe attitude and a respectful attitude," Hart says.

On July 13, 1985, Hart experienced a freak and nearly fatal occurence while flying for a sky-diving company in Canton.

Hart's engine failed after takeoff at 600 feet in the air.

"A pilot's job during an engine failure is to maintain control of the airplane and keep it gliding," Hart says. "But we had a failure close to the ground, and there was no time to attempt to restart the engine."

Hart says he only had time to turn the Cessna 182 around toward the airport and attempt to land in a gravel quarry, away from populated areas.

The plane initially landed on bumpy ground, shaking and causing Hart to knock his head against the door frame. The uncontrolled plane then went into a lake.

"I was knocked out after landing ­ unconscious," Hart says. "Everything here is speculated based on what we could piece together. The airplane passed through some trees and came apart as it was going through the woods. The whole front section of the airplane was gone, the engine had pulled from the plane and made a big, wide-open gap."

Everyone else on the plane swam out of the gap to safety, he says.

"When I awoke, the plane was completely submerged," Hart says. "The water was apparently what revived me. I came to, but I was pinned inside the plane. I wasn't able to get out, and I started to struggle."

After several failed attempts to free himself from the plane, Hart gave one more try. He pulled himself from the wreckage and swam through jagged metal at the front of the plane. Hart suffered a broken collarbone and several bruises and cuts.

The Federal Aviation Administration concluded the crash occurred from unknown causes.

"As I was swimming to shore, the first thing I heard were the sirens," Hart says. "I remember thinking that I would never get back into an airplane."

But that thought faded quickly. Hart went up a month later, although he says the first time back in a plane was an uncomfortable experience.

"I've wanted to fly since I was this high," he says, holding his hand down at knee level. "People have a passion to fly. It gets in their blood."

With the support of family and friends, Hart says he overcame his new-found fear of flying.

"The (phrase) people kept using was, 'Kevin, when you get thrown from a horse, you gotta get back on and ride.' And that's what I did," he says.

Today, Hart shares his near-tragic story with his pupils. He encourages his students to learn from his accident and to be aware "freak" occurrences while flying could happen to anyone.

Although the causes of airplane accidents sometimes go undetermined, several factors could be involved: poor weather, human error or mechanical malfunctions.

However, the FAA says the No. 1 cause stems from human behavior.

An FAA-accident prevention program directed toward pilots, reveals accident-prone pilots tend to be over-confident, self-assertive or tense and panicky. Safer pilots tend to be those who are cautious, well-controlled or tolerant and aware of their limitations. The program emphasizes most aircraft accidents are preventable and that most were precipitated by some human failure rather than a mechanical malfunction.

Hart says overconfidence can be a problem for some pilots. The most crucial time for overconfidence to affect pilots is after they receive their private pilot's certificate, when they have 200 to 500 hours of flight experience.

"It's very important that any pilot realizes his or her limitations, whether they're in training or acting as a professional," Hart says. "The less experienced you are, the more limitations you're going to have."

Melissa Farson, a Kent State graduate and full-time flight instructor at the KSU airport for two years, says she never had problems with confidence levels affecting the performance of her pilot trainees.

"These students that come out here want to do this, and they sometimes have anxiety only because they want to learn," Farson says. "There's a class taught to the students where they study aircraft accidents. They learn from other people's mistakes."

John Roncz, an Indiana aerodynamicist who helped design the wings of the Voyager and the Long-EZ canard, says the key to overcoming a potential accident is to learn risk management.

"You have to be willing to accept some risk by the very fact that you're leaving the ground," Roncz says. "But you have to manage that risk and try to limit your exposure to it."

Roncz, who also is a long-time private pilot and frequent flier, says most of the near accidents he was involved in were caused by weather or air-traffic control mistakes.

"I was in the clouds flying blind, and so I had to rely totally on air-traffic control," Roncz says. "Somehow, they lost track of me, and a jet passed so close to me. It was a near-miss collision."

Roncz says bad, unexpected weather conditions sometimes are to blame for accidents. The four forces on an airplane, lift-weight, thrust-drag, are affected by too much ice forming on the wings and outside the aircraft. Ice forms as a result of moisture, which can come in different forms: precipitation, rain or snow.

"Ice adds a bunch of weight and increases the drag," he says. "Normally, a plane can tolerate a little ice, but too much will cause the airplane to descend."

Although ice is dangerous, the worst weather condition during a flight is a thunderstorm, Roncz says. The winds and turbulence can rip off the wings of a plane, and hail can dent the airplane. Dents on an airplane can change its lift.

Only in rare cases do accidents result from mechanical problems or poor design, he says.

"Every airplane is tested to death," Roncz says. "It has to meet all kinds of standards. The quality in an airplane is extremely high."

Reports of spontaneous movements of the rudder on the Boeing 737 may be one example of poor design being responsible for accidents. Fatal accidents have been blamed on these movements of the rudder, an instrument on the back of the plane that deflects air flow in to turn the nose left or right.

A September 1994 flight from Aliquippa, Pa., crashed in Pittsburgh, claiming 132 lives. The Boeing 737 reportedly suffered a spontaneous deflection causing the plane to roll over.

The FAA recently has ordered the Boeing company to redesign the 737's rudder, following new guidelines.

Ted Orris, who flies a Boeing 737, has been a USAir co-pilot for eight years and is a Kent State graduate.

"I had to fly a 737 to Phoenix the day after the Pittsburgh accident," Orris says.

Orris knew two passengers who died in the crash, Kent State graduate and fellow pilot Tony Rich and his wife.

"I can't say I was nervous, but the accident was in the front of my mind for the entire trip," Orris says. "The 737 is one of the most popular planes in the world. And if the FAA thought the 737 was that dangerous, they would have parked all of them."

Orris, who has flown for 17 years, says he never thought about giving up flying after hearing about the fatal USAir accident or other freak occurrences.

Although an overconfident pilot is a problem, Orris says a pilot's lack of confidence is just as dangerous.

"A pilot must have enough confidence to continue," he says. "When the pilot in 'Top Gun' gave up his wings, that was a good thing."

Any pilot lacking that confidence, Orris says, should be brave enough to admit it and move on.

"You pay for your mistakes with your life. That gives you a wake-up call. You don't want your family and friends to read about you in the paper," Orris says. "I don't want to be critiqued when I'm dead."

Katie O'Keeffe is a senior newspaper journalism major. She doesn't have a fear of flying; she has a fear of falling.