You know those talks just before takeoffthat no one ever listens to on how to blow your whistle on your life jacket . Following the thread on parachutes on commercial airliners, I was wondering whether the life-jackets have ever been useful. I only know of one or two crashes into water of a large airliner where the passengers survived, but this was quite shallow water, and suspect that the lifejackets may have been redundant.
I don’t have an answer, but have been wondering something similar. Has anyone actually used their seat cushion as a floatation device? This would, of course, only apply on domestic flights where they don’t provide standard life jackets.
I can think of two incidents where lives were saved because of these things. I don’t have the specifics in front of me, but…
May 2, 1970, a Overseas National Airlines DC-9 ran out of fuel on its way to a destination over the Carabian. The plane ditched successfully, and most of the passengers and crew survived using life jackets and one of the flotation slides (the rest either inflated incorrectly or went down with the plane). According to the article about it, it’s the only successful ditching of a commercial jetliner in aviation history (I assume successful in the the plane was more or less intact)
The other incident that comes to mind was the crash of a hijacked Ethiopian Airliner a few years back that crashed just off the coast near a resort (it was caught on film). I recall reading about that crash and hearing that seveal injured passengers used seat cushions to get to shore safely (though they were not far out to begin with).
So it may not be often, but it happens.
If you can’t stand up in it, the water isn’t shallow enough. Not everybody can swim.
Well, yes, only successful deliberate (in the sense of knowing what they were doing, not that they WANTED to ditch) deep-water intact-jetliner ditching.
Then there was the entirely NON-deliberate ditching of a Japanese DC8 into San Francisco Bay when they just landed seriously short of the airport in bad fog. The plane settled nicely upright with its wheels on the Bay’s bottom, was salvaged and returned to flying status eventually.
Do they provide life jackets? I thought your seta cushion beomces a floatation device. Isn’t that what they always say? - Jinx
Yes. Pay more attention to the safety briefing. It’s under your seat.
Sometimes, but not always. ICAO rules call for life jackets beyond 50 miles from land and rafts beyond 100 miles, as of 1994. See EQUIPPED TO SURVIVE (tm) - Ditchings - a Case History and Review of the Record , Table VI and below. If the plane stays within gliding distance of land the entire flight, no floatation devices are required. In between, seat cushions are required.
Clearly you’ve never flown over any seas or oceans. International flights have full-on lifejackets which self-inflate, or can be inflated with the mouthpiece. “The strap goes around your body and fastens at the front. The life-jacket has a light and a whistle to attract attention.”
I remember those talks when flying into/out of Phoenix. It struck me as a little odd, especially when sitting on the ground in Phoenx, in the middle of a desert. The biggest body of water we’d be flying over would be a swimming pool.
From this site:
I was unable to find anything that specifically discussed the use of flotation devices during that disaster, but since so many of the deaths were due to drowning, and since there were a number of survivors, I’d think that flotation devices helped save people.
In this particular incident, life vests both helped and hurt people. Many of the survivors were injured, and were helped to shore using life vests, seat cushions, and floating debris to help keep them afloat. A large number of survivors also clung to what was left of the plane’s fuselage that was still floating. In the articles that I’ve read, it’s not clear if these survivors had vests on or if the plane was the only thing helping them stay afloat.
However, when the passengers knew they were going to ditch into the ocean, many of them panicked and inflated their vests before the plane even hit the water. The inflated vests hindered their escape from the plane, and many of them drowned as a result.
More info:
http://www.airdisaster.com/special/ethiopian961.shtml
http://www.geocities.com/khlim777_my/asditching1.htm
They obviously didn’t read the safety card then (or didn’t give it enough thought for it to override their panic). Life jackets should never be inflated until well clear of the wreckage. Otherwise you may not get out, or it may get burst on a sharp piece of wreckage.
Speaking of safety cards…a little hijack
I recently flew to Las Vegas on an MD-83 equipped with rafts.
In the event of Water Landing:
The card demonstrated that you should tie the raft to a handhold near the emergency exit with the provided rope while loading (apparently assuming the plane is floating). The next panel shows one of the people on the raft cutting the rope with a knife to allow the raft to float away from the plane.
So who has the knife?..is it in the raft?..do the air crew have them stashed somewhere?
The knife (along with all kinds of other useful stuff - fish hooks, line, needles and thread, water, aspirin, mirrors, whistles, etc) are included in the survival kits in the rafts.
The rope used to tie the raft to the aircraft is also the one used for inflating the raft. Even if you can’t locate a knife, the rope or “painter line” should have a weak link and will seperate if the aircraft sinks. If, for some reason the aircraft doesn’t sink (maybe shallow water) then it doesn’t hurt to have the raft close to the aircraft and it’s Emergency Locating Transmitter.
Still, I’d rather cut the line than rely on a weak link.
Don’t the rafts also have transmitters?
I’m not sure about airline rafts. We have a couple of seperate transmitters with our rafts, but I don’t fly with an airline. Another good reason to stay with the aircraft if practical (ie it’s not burning or sinking), is that it is a lot easier to see from the air than a raft.
On the other hand, if your raft does have a transmitter and you wish to use it, you will need to put some distance between you and the aircraft so the 2 transmitter signals don’t interfere.