I recently got home from Las Vegas. As is my habit, prior to the trip, I found myself watching Youtube videos about airline disasters. I don’t know why I do this to myself, but I do. I’ve become something of a coinnosseur of airplanes crashing. If there is a way an airliner can lawn dart into a Nebraska cornfield, slam into the side of a mountain, or cartwheel down the runway, incinerating a few hundred passengers, I know it. As a result, I’m overattentive to everything.
One thing I’m always looking for is to make sure the flaps are fully extended prior to takeoff. Trust me, you don’t want your airplane to try taking off without extended flaps, or you’ll end up with the people on Delta 1141, Spanair 5022, and probably Northwest 255, destroyed due to the pilots not extending the flaps.
Okay, so suppose I’m on a plane, frightened, and it starts the takeoff, and I see the flaps aren’t deplayed. What’s the protocol? What do you do?
I know what I would do: I would start screaming “FLAPS! FLAPS! THE FLAPS AREN’T DOWN!” but would the flight attendants react and notify the drunk pilots? Or is there some other passenger protocol if you see undeployed flaps, engines on fire, gremlins on the wing, or what have you?
Not quite true, despite those examples. Depends on the plane and various factors. In any case, it’s way too late for you as a passenger to do something about it once the takeoff roll has started. At least on an airliner, which these days have locked cockpit doors - the pilots won’t hear you.
On the bizjets I fly there’s no door and I might hear you shriek up front. But past a certain point (v1), we’re going flying regardless. So you’d best be quick. Then if it turns out you do get me to abort the takeoff, and it turns out you were wrong and I have to submit paperwork for a rejected takeoff and explain it to my boss… I’m going to be miffed.
All that being said, I approve of people saying something when they see something amiss on an aircraft, even if they don’t understand it. There’s a great story in one of the books on my shelf about a passenger stopping a Concorde disaster… Stand by for part 2…
This happened int he 70s or 80s. Apparently an Air France Concorde had had some sort of collision with a ground vehicle that went unnoticed and they took off with a hole in the trailing edge of one of the wings. A passenger saw it but was ignored by the flight attendants because it couldn’t be seen from the aisle.
Fortunately he made a big fuss and insisted they send a crew member to look. Eventually the flight engineer came back and couldn’t see the problem. The passenger finally stood up and made the guy sit in his seat and look out the window. Whereupon the engineer exclaimed, “Sacre bleu!” or something similar, got up and ran to the cockpit. Luckily he stopped them from going supersonic, in which case they might not have survived.
Serious answer: once the airplane starts accelerating for takeoff nothing you can say or do will get from you to FA to cockpit in time to matter. So don’t waste brain bytes on that.
Instead begin prepping to escape from the airplane after it, or its wreckage, stops moving. Where’s the exit, count the rows, how do I open it, etc.
FYI zero-flap takeoffs are certainly mistakes and mistakes with a very high profile for the safety folks. But they are not guaranteed crashes. In many scenarios they’re merely puckering for the pilots once they figure out what happened.
It’s also the case that the likelihood of a no-flap takeoff w/o alarms is far lower than it was in the 1970s when some of the cited accidents occurred.
What I’m wondering is whether any different, unique information is conveyed during the safety demonstration, particularly with regard to an Airbus versus a Boeing or an Embraer or a 737 versus a 787. I mean, the seat belts all attach the same way, all of the planes seem to have similar life vests below the seats, there are emergency exits at the front, back and over the wings, etc.
The only differences I’ve experienced in safety demonstrations is for overwater flights, where they’ll take a minute to tell you where to find your life vest. Even then, though, they’ll tell you to follow the instructions of the attendants if the need arises.
I understand there are life rafts stowed somewhere. I have no idea where, or how to release them into the water, if that’s what you’re asking.
I’ve heard the bit about where to find the life vests on every flight, including domestic ones where we don’t expect to fly over water. I believe the life rafts are in compartments in the ceiling, while the inflatable slides can also be detached and also used as rafts.
This has me wondering: If something has gone wrong with the engine or flaperon, etc. what if it’s at an angle the pilots can’t see? Obviously, they do a walkaround inspection before flight, but what if it’s mid-flight or after the inspection? Is there a camera located behind and below the wing?
Generally not. What there are on most, not all, airliners are position sensors on all the big moving parts and corresponding graphics somewhere on the various screens. Such that the pilots can indirectly know what’s where.
On airplanes lacking those features there is at a minimum some sort of warning light for things like “All flaps are not where they belong” or “all spoilers are not where they belong”.
Anything that’s not where it belongs will also elicit some sort of obvious abnormal feel. The airplane wants to roll or vibrate or something when it should not. So even lacking all bells & whistles, the pilots would still know something is wrong, but not what.
Of course there are mechanisms designed to minimize the likelihood of assymmetric conditions. e.g. If anything gets stuck, everything else stops moving almost immediately.
etc. Rather a lot of thought has been put into these kinds of malfunctions ever since airplanes first got mechanically complex back in the 1940s.
You’re right there’s not a great deal of difference nowadays. Although the details of how you open the doors on any given manufactuer or model vary a lot. For the main doors, there’s a FA seated right there whose job in an evacuation is to get the door open long before you could get to it. For e.g. overwing exits, that duty falls to the passenger(s) seated adjacent.
The demo is is given every time because a) The Feds say it must be so, and b) The Feds say it must be so.
Sensible motivations for this are that a) everybody has a first flight sometime, and b) reinforcing this stuff everytime helps put the info top of mind.
The fact you know all that emergency evacuation stuff you do is because of reinforcement. If you’d been briefed on it once at age 15 and never given it a thought since, you wouldn’t know anything now. More importantly, even if you might know some tidbits in an academic testing sense, you sure wouldn’t recall them when you suddenly need them. Human recall doesn’t work that way. Reinforcement both in the right context and close enough in time works wonders.
Irritating though it may be to sit through … again. Sigh. I feel your pain.
Once on a Delta takeoff out of Vegas there was a rapid loud bang,.bang…bang noise from the left wing. It alarmed the passengers until it stopped as the flaps were retracted. When the FAs were available I asked one about the noise. She wanted more information and suggested that I observe closer when we leave our next stop, Dallas. So, I did and reported that the spoiler ahead of the main flap was not restrained by any linkage and was freely ‘flapping’ in the airstream to produce the loud noise. The only thing that stopped it was being folded into the wing when the flaps were retracted. Which I reported to the FA.
This was a Vegas, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami flight. When they were about to close the doors in Atlanta, the pilot came back to where I sat and asked what my problem was. I described what I had observed. He loudly asked if I was a structural engineer qualified to make such judgements. I could probably claim that I am but passed on the opportunity and said ‘no, however a large section of one wing flapping freely in the breeze seemed to pose a danger’. His response was that “We are going to Miami, if you wish to deplane, you are free to do so”.
I stayed with the plane. He was standing by the door as I got off in Miami “We knew about it” the smug bastard whispered as I passed.
So, if you notice anything, do bring it to their attention, but expect to be treated like an imbecile.
You can also sardonically applaud when the plane lands safely.
I remember a flight where there was an unusually hard landing in less-than-optimal weather, where the shock was enough to spring open doors in the overhead bins. Numerous passengers loudly applauded.
I was on a flight from Puerto Rico to Miami where the majority of passengers were Puerto Rican. It was one of the smoothest flights I ever experienced. When we landed, the passengers all clapped! I joined in. I assume it was a cultural thing.
The unique configuration details are conveyed via the passenger safety briefing card, located in the seatback pocket in front of you, or otherwise available from the cabin crew.
These cards are designed to give aircraft-level details on how to open doors, deploy slides, how to use the slides, where to go once you evacuate (“away from the plane”), details on bracing positions, oxygen mask operations, etc. As the design details vary across different aircraft types, the relevant information is conveyed in this manner, otherwise the safety briefing would be much longer.
On commercial aircraft it’s generally assumed that crew will locate and deploy life rafts if necessary.
On private planes, design assumptions are that any occupant may do it, so placards to convey location and packaging of the rafts provide the necessary instructions. These planes also have briefing cards and safety briefings.
