If they can’t operate the seatbelt AFTER they’ve had the briefing, then let’s face it…some people are just never going to learn.
So that just proves how unnecessary the briefing is.
Either ya know already, or you’re a nominee for a Darwin award. 
Nah, it just shows that it wasn’t briefed thoroughly enough. See, they need to spend MORE time doing this before you can leave the gate. 
wow–that’s a scary idea!
Now I’m gonna have nightmares about my next flight
They could do it like we do in the Air Force: Mandatory Computer Based Training!
I had to take a CBT about the operatoin of the M-16 Assault Rifle before I could go to the firing range to qualify. The instructors there evidently hadn’t been told about that requirement, and couldn’t figure out how it would possibly benefit anyone.
As I was watching Air Force One departing Charlotte on Friday, I was wondering if the President has to sit through a safety briefing and the whole pantomime about where the exits are each time he flies somewhere.
“In the unlikely event of a water landing, your Secret Service agent may be used as a floatation device.”
Pilots have used checklists for decades. It turns out that other professions could benefit from the practice: Study: A Simple Surgery Checklist Saves Lives.
Having the window shades up during takeoff and landing is not an actual FAA regulation. Everyone thinks that it is but we have looked for it and it isn’t in the FAA regulations anywhere. Only the exit row seats have to have them up. That rule is from the airlines themselves and not all of them require it based on many of the recent flights I have taken. They don’t usually make everyone raise them for sunrise takeoffs for example because it is annoying for people still trying to get some more sleep.
I work for an airline. I fly as a passenger very often.
For frequent flyers, the information given during the safety briefing is routine. However, I take the opportunity to look at where I am relative to the emergency exits and count the number of rows to the exits in front of and behind me.
I’m not a nervous flyer at all. But I do tighten my seatbelt some and become a little more alert to what’s going on during take off and landing as these are typically when incidents happen.
If an unanticipated runway excursion and resulting fire were to happen, things would get quite chaotic and visibility would plummet very quickly. I want to be strapped in for the event and oriented to the best way out, with a couple of options, without taking too much time to think about it.
Even if you do know you can’t smoke and you know how to operate your seatbelt, you would do well to give yourself a little safety briefing while the topic is being focused on.
Yep. I wish I could figure out which prototype it was that had the bad landing, but now I can’t find a reference to it (so possibly apocrypha), but so the story goes, they hadn’t thought to use checklists up to that point, but afterwards, they realized that flying had become complicated enough that they were a necessity for aircrews.
I believe Air Force One operates under a military designation and so is not subject to the Federal Aviation Regulations that commercial and other business jets are subject to. If AFO operates as a civilian flight, then it would probably be Part 135 which does, in fact, include the seatbelt safety briefing as a matter of federal law. I don’t know what the Air Force requires in its regulations, but I think it would be somewhat irresponsible to not include a safety briefing of some sort.
As for the seatbelt issue - you guys aren’t thinking like safety people. When you get shown how to use the seatbelt that you’ve already attached and undone 3 times as you settle into your seat, get up to get something from your bag, sit down, and repeat, you inevitably think "why do I need to hear this, I clearly know how to use it!’ as you mentally or actually undo and redo the seatbelt just to prove it. This is actually a good thing, and part of the intent of these reminders: you’ve just been reminded, in context, of an action that, while simple, is different than usual (it doesn’t resemble car seatbelts) and that you might struggle with in a panic/accident/incident situation. Having had a recent reminder in the same environment than where you might need to use it, your brain is much more likely to correctly recall the information and be able to do the action required under stress.
Here’s a related set of data:
LIFE JACKET UNDER YOUR SEAT
You’ve all read it, thousands of times, as you stared blankly at the seat ahead of you, you’ve been old on every flight (or, at least, every flight rated for Extended Overwater Operations which actually has life jackets), and you probably know that many seat cushions can also be used as flotation device.
LIFE JACKET UNDER YOUR SEAT
In the Hudson river accident, out of 150 passengers, only 77 retrieved a flotation seat cushion. Only 10 passengers retrieved a life jacket themselves and evacuated with them. The passengers were not explicitly briefed on how to use the life vests, because the flight was not formally an Extended Overwater flight - it was luck/coincidence that the aircraft itself was equipped with the vest. The passengers who retrieved one or the other flotation device were frequent flyers - those who didn’t, largely weren’t. Many passengers explicitly said that they were much more concerned with evacuation and either didn’t know or didn’t remember that life jackets were located under their seats. Flat out didn’t remember where they were. Only 19 passengers even ATTEMPTED to get a lifejacket from under their seat - the rest of the people who ended up with one got one from crew/other passengers still in the plane who handed them forward once most passengers were already out. Only 33 people ended up with a life vest.
LIFE JACKET UNDER YOUR SEAT.
THIS IS HOW YOU BUCKLE AND UNBUCKLE YOUR SEATBELT.
You think you don’t need to be told again and again and again, but the data tells us otherwise. When it matters most, many people will forget, so we might as well remind you again, just to up your chances of survival.
To add to the above.
It’s important to brief someone who is unfamiliar with safety equipment and procedures on how to use the equipment and what the procedures are. When we have someone in the jump seat on the flight deck we tell them how to operate the four point harness, how to operate the intercom, where the exits are and how to open them, where the life jackets are, and when they can talk/ask questions or when they should be quiet. I think everyone would agree that someone sitting in the jump seat for the first time or who sits there infrequently, should be briefed on all of that stuff. We can also agree that the majority of passengers in the passenger cabin are familiar with the safety equipment and procedures in the cabin. So do we really need a briefing for the passengers? Well first up the only reason they know what to do is that we give them briefings. If there was no briefing then the new generation of passengers would not know what to do. Second, there is no way of knowing what passengers have or haven’t heard the briefing before. If you were to go into the cabin and ask, “hands up those who are unfamiliar with the safety briefing”, I’d be willing to bet that the one person who was flying for the first time wouldn’t put their hand up because they wouldn’t want to look like a noob.
I’m a frequent flyer and I’ve heard the briefing many times. I still stop reading and pay attention because it’s polite to give someone attention when they are addressing you and also because aircraft types do have subtle differences and I like to be reminded that the over-wing exit on this type will open outwards, while the over-wing exit on this other type needs to be pulled in, turned on its side and thrown out.
It is also important that the flight attendants make eye contact with passengers so they can assess who might be the able bodied persons that they will call upon in the event of an emergency. There are a number of emergency landing scenarios that call for passengers to be used to help control the evacuation.
So, yes we’ve heard it all before, but it serves an important function. Please at least look like you’re listening, and make eye contact with the crew.
umm…I think buckling a seatbelt is a little more intuitive than putting on a life vest. I don’t have a life vest in my car.
Also, the seat belt is right there, getting in my way and banging on my genitals. I know about it, up close and personal. The life vest is hidden somewhere in a place where I have never seen it. Despite bending down under the seat a few hundred times to get at my hand luggage or find my shoes (which I always remove while I sleep on planes), I’ve never noticed the life vest. So I’m not surprised that a lot of people on the Hudson flight didn’t use theirs.