Please Help With Senegal--At My Wits End

We have a 13 year old Senegal that we have had a little over a year now. We are his third home. Since we have gotten him we have gone through this cycle--Solo (the Senegal) warms up to me in him cage, becomes social, talkative, etc--I open his cage and start allowing out of cage time--all is well at first, then, something startles him. It doesn't have to be big, it can be as small as just one of our other birds flying, or Solo could just decide to fly on his own. Once he flies, 9 times out of 10 he becomes terrified to the point of being inconsolable. If I leave him where he is he just stays there freaking out, but if I try to get him to step up (which he knows) he freaks out and tries to escape me at all costs. I'm afraid if I try to wait him out indefinitely he will squeeze into some tiny space and I will lose him.

Once I have collected him I put him back in his cage I close the door (if I leave the door open he does the same thing--flies out or off the top and the cycle repeats). Solo then goes for a period of time--sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes even months, where he no longer trusts me and shows clear signs of fear when I feed and water him. Then he starts to trust me again and all is well unless I let him out of the cage.

The longest he's gone where he has happily been able to be a "normal" bird going in and out of his cage has been several months, then something scared him and it was over.

I want him to have a good quality of life with out of cage time but I don't know what to do--he WANTS to come out and will climb on top when I open the door, but then something happens and he flies off and has his panic attack again. I have a Quaker in the room with him who is great with out of cage time so he has another bird to model after.

I'm desperate here, I just don't know what to do to help Solo get over this--I'm out of ideas and at my wit's end. I don't want him to spend the rest of his days cage bound.

Hmm. I'm wondering if ditching the cage entirely could be an answer here.
I'm a "cage person" but I've heard of this kind of bird benefitting having no cage at all. Just a play stand.

I would clip his wings. It will make him more dependant on you which will aid in learning to trust you and his environment so that hopefully, by the time they grow back these issues will no longer be a problem.

I agree, I'd clip him so he can glide for now and work with him and hopefully by the time he molts he'll be over it.

Well, his wings are clipped--I guess I should have made that more clear. When he "flies" it's more of a fluttering for a bit to the ground.

Have you tried putting his cage in a different room? Maybe the other birds are making him nervous? How long have you had him?

We have had him a little over a year. He was in quarantine for about 90 days in a bedroom at the opposite side of the house and the same thing happened.

He had an incident this morning (right before I made the thread) and was acting terrified of me after I put him back in the cage. When I got home this evening he was making tentative noises at me and did take several Nutriberries (his favorite treat) through the bars. He is now in the next room making noises back and forth with me. BUT, I know if I were to open the cage the same thing would surely happen, especially now that he's been spooked.