MOSCOW — A clinical psychologist at Moscow’s European Medical Center has warned that a US aerospace startup’s plan to replace conventional aircraft windows with digital screens could trigger anxiety, derealization, and panic attacks in passengers, including those with no prior history of aerophobia.
JetZero, a California-based company developing a blended-wing-body aircraft concept, intends to replace traditional portholes with high-resolution digital displays projecting exterior imagery. The company cites aerodynamic efficiency as the primary rationale: removing the structural interruptions caused by windows reduces drag and simplifies the load-bearing geometry of the fuselage.
Luiza Istomina, a clinical psychologist at Moscow’s European Medical Center, told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the design removes something passengers rely on for reasons that have nothing to do with aerodynamics.
“An airplane window is not just a source of light or a way to see clouds,” she said. “It is our last psychological anchor, connecting us to the outside world. By depriving us of this visual contact, we risk triggering a feeling of derealization in passengers, when the confined space of the cabin begins to feel like an isolated capsule.”
The concern goes beyond confined spaces. Istomina identified a specific sensory mechanism: any latency or visual disruption in the screen feed, such as a slight delay, a flicker, or a mismatch between what the eye registers and what the vestibular system expects, can destabilize the brain’s integration of sensory signals and induce derealization even in passengers who have never experienced in-flight anxiety.
“For someone with anxiety, this will not calm them down; on the contrary, it will increase their internal tension, because the brain will not be able to synchronize the vestibular system and visual signals, which can trigger claustrophobia or panic attacks even in those who have not previously experienced acute aerophobia,” she said.
The populations she identified as most at risk extend beyond those with diagnosed anxiety disorders: elderly passengers unfamiliar with digital interfaces and people with high autonomic reactivity to stress face elevated exposure to the perceptual disruption the design may introduce.
The JetZero concept remains in development and has not entered commercial certification processes with the US Federal Aviation Administration or the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Whether aviation regulators will require psychological impact assessments for windowless aircraft interiors is a question neither body has yet addressed.
Istomina’s critique does not engage with what a high-fidelity, zero-latency screen system might do to her anxiety calculus. Whether the technology currently in development can meet that standard is a question the engineering has not yet answered.
