A terrifying near-accident on an airplane has offered new insight on how a person’s memory processes influence the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD.) In 2001, Air Transat flight 236 nearly crashed into the Atlantic Ocean after running out of fuel; at the last minute the pilot was able to land safely on a small island military base in the Azores.
One of the passengers, Mary McKinnon, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, recognized the opportunity to study a group of people exposed to the same traumatic event. Interviews with 15 passengers revealed that those who developed PTSD were able recall a higher number of details external to the main event.
This altered memory processing may be a vulnerability factor for PTSD.
The original research paper is available on request and was published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science on August 13, 2014.
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