My first 'attack'

Question: "I had my first claustrophobic panic attack on a "small" 6.2 feet ceiling, 2 seats ea side, very narrow aisle, fully booked  commercial plane yesterday.

I have been on these planes many times before without problem. It happened in 30 seconds. I was amazed.  Two minutes after sitting down I suddenly had to get off, and I did.  

After about 5 minutes just outside the plane door, I got back into my seat, scared s***less, but convinced I had to deal with this.  I was 1000 miles from home on Sunday and I had to work Mon.

I read intently, and was annoyed with everyone who closed their shades or walked by in the incredibly narrow aisle, but I survived.  Horrible.  

Any suggestions as to what type of treatment is best?  What medicine, hypnotherapy, desensitisation should I consider?

Response: What type of treatment? I'd suggest that you look out for an NLP-trained professional. My guess is that you live in North America and I cannot offer you names there. So instead, I suggest that you use a good search engine like Google and check out "NLP mytown/state".

Then telephone the listed institutes or organisations and check out their experience in specifically working with flying phobias OR, preferably, with panic attacks.

Sounds like you had a panic rather than a phobic reaction. (This could quite easily develop into a fully fledged flying phobia - but treat the panic and you'll soon be comfortable flying again, I'd say).

Panics often occur as the result of a period of fairly intense worry or stress or disruption of one's lifestyle. 

Check out the Panic and the Fear of Flying sections.  

Check out our section on Claustrophobia

Important: please read our caution regarding all health-related advice.