I’ve been wondering for a while what the deal is with the pre-flight safety information you get with every flight. Fair enough that it’s possible for every flight to be somebody’s first flight, so there are things that need to be communicated. But why is the operation of the seat belt one of them? Are their federal or international regulations that require this? Is it related to insurance?
Similarly, why is it necessary to dim the lights during take off? And to keep your window shades open? I’ve heard that the window one is so that if there is a crisis or problem, the inside of the airplane will be easily visible from the outside - is that true?
And have those rafts that come out of the wings ever actually be used successfully in a water landing? Or life jackets? When were all these protocols first instituted? Did they come as a result of previous disasters?
Believe it or not, there are people who don’t know how to operate a seatbelt. Attendants can tell you all sorts of stories. The safety lecture is for insurance purposes and to make sure everybody knows where the exits are for that aircraft. I fly mainly 737s. If I’m ever on an Airbus, I’m sure going to pay attention to the exit lecture. As for ratfs and such - yes, they work and have been used successfully. Just google “water landings, commercial aircraft” for examples. They don’t work when you impact the ocean at 300 knots, of course.
Not sure about “what’s inside being visible from outside”, but I was on a flight once where we sucked up a bird into an engine and the flight crew used the cabin windows to help determine what the hell was going on and how bad the damage was. Much easier to have the window shade already up than to have to fumble with it when you’re in a hurry to see how much wing/engine you have left.
Not the happiest time I’ve had in an airplane, for sure.
Yep. If I recall, they were used as recently as the “Miracle on Hudson” Airbus ditching by Captain Sully and company, seeing as the plane did start to sink at a certain point, and the difficulty of piling everyone onto the wings.
Yes, a lot of safety regs and rules were instituted due to accidents and/or disasters, often from incidents resulting in loss of life. That is why some folks say “the regs are written in blood”.
Ask away - we have lots of pilots, mechanics, and other aviation types around here covering just about every sort of flying thing (although I don’t think we’ve had an actual astronaut/cosmonaut. Yet.)
It is my understanding that those briefings, and what is in them, are required by the FAA. The airlines don’t really have a choice.
The window shades open is another FAA requirement, and came about from crashes where people could not see to get out since the window shades were down.
As for life rafts, somewhat recently (recent enough that most folks remember it), US Airways flight 1549 lost its engines to a bird strike. This is the plane where the pilot said he couldn’t make it to the nearest runway for an emergency landing and told air traffic control that they would be “in the Hudson.” The pilot managed a successful water landing. Here’s a picture of the rafts extended with people on them.
There was a plane that was hijacked and ran out of fuel (the hijackers demanded to go someplace they simply didn’t have enough fuel for) and there is a fairly famous video of it crashing into the water. The video doesn’t look that bad, but a lot of people died, many because they inflated their life vest while inside the plane and couldn’t get out. For those that waited until they exited the plane, the life vests did save many from drowning.
The lights are dimmed at night so that if you have to evacuate, your eyes will already be used to the dark outside and you’ll be able to see once you leave the aircraft.
We’ve had some threads on a number of these issues, one of the things we mentioned regarding the seatbelts is that the buckle release that is used in airplanes (lift top plate from the back to move the latch itself out of the way) is different from the one familiar to users of modern automobiles (press to push down the spring that holds the latch).
The safety briefing is required by regulation and if you have to return to the gate, upon trying to depart again you have to once more go through with it.
I believe ecg is referring to Ethiopian 961, which crashed off the Comoros Islands after three incompetent hijackers refused to believe that they didn’t have enough fuel to get to Australia.
The plane quickly began filling with water, and those who inflated their lifejackets prematurely were pinned against the ceiling, while others were able to swim out.
It’s completely familiar to those of us who grew up in the '60s, as that was the standard design for automobile seatbelts, too. I’m not sure the new designs are better, but they sure are prettier.
Ive always wondered how the preflight announcement came to be delivered so unnaturally. (Please extinguish ALL smoking materials.) the stress patterns throughout are strange.
That doesn’t appear to be mandated. Possibly some airlines standardize the speech.
Try flying WestJet. Some of the attendants giving the briefing make it a comedy show. My last Fort Lauderdale -> Toronto flight included something like “If your oxygen mask does not inflate completely, don’t worry - ours will.”
The repeat in French, as Leaffan hinted at, was taped, and no one laughed. I don’t know if that’s because they don’t put the jokes on tape, or if we didn’t actually have any French speakers on the flight.
-D/a
Neither are the exits, or the spaces between the seats.
I might get through a standard overwing exit door with an inflated life vest on, but it would certainly slow me down a tiny bit.
Someone with bigger bones and a bit more meat on those bones would certainly get slowed down a bit more, maybe even stuck for a second or two. When you are trying to get a couple of hundred people out of a burning/sinking plane, slowing things down is not helpful.
One of the charms of flying Virgin America is the animated safety video they play before each flight. It gently makes fun of the ridiculousness of some the information they’re repeating for the 1000th time.
“For the .0001 percent of you who have never operated a seat belt before, it works like this … .”
Also, if the airplane is sinking, the exit may be underwater, and you won’t be able to get from the air bubble in the top of the cabin down to the exit while wearing an inflated life vest.
Operation of seatbelts? I’ve been flying two flights a week for the last three years and have seen two people who couldn’t work the seatbelt, and thats just the folks around me. Really couldn’t do it, not just fumbling. I guess maybe there is a need.
Maybe we ain’t understanding the seatbelt part of Benmc47’s question right. Instead of “why do they have to show people how to use a seatbelt, it’s so obvious?”, are you asking “why do they tell people they need to strap in during takeoff, they’re sitting down anyway?”. The answer to the 2nd would be turbulence or short stop on aborted takeoff. Turbulence has brought down very few planes, but a good # of people have been hurt even while sitting in their seats, after unexpected turbulence, if not belted in - hence the suggestion to belt unless moving about the plane. After 1 flight I was on that dropped a couple hundred feet, I always grab the seatbax when going to the boys’ room.
If you think it’s bad being told that stuff every time as a passenger, remember that the pilot is reminded on every flight to raise and lower the landing gear and other similarly basic things. In the cockpit, they have checklists they are required to follow for everything, as in pilot and co-pilot reading the checklist items to each other and verbally confirming what they are doing. That’s been a standard in aviation ever since a Boeing prototype airplane accidentally belly-landed because neither the pilot nor co-pilot thought to verify whether the other one had lowered the wheels.
Also, the few times I’ve flown on military transports (KC-135, no windows, no in-flight movie, sitting on the cargo web seats against the wall with our baggage tied down to the floor in the center aisle, great times), we have also gotten pre-flight safety briefings, from the Refueling Boom Operator (famously the one guy in the Air Force whose job literally is to lay down, look at airplanes, and pass gas.) Things like where the exits are (big cargo hatch near the front of the cabin, smaller hatch near the tail, window exits over the wings, hatch in the floor of the cockpit, don’t forget to grab the ladder if you want to use that one), how to use the emergency air masks (gotta love any instructions that begin with “Put your head in the plastic bag”, due to the design of masks used on the -135s), and a confirmation that no, there are no peanuts available on this flight, and we’re all assholes for insisting he’s a flight attendant.
