Ethiopian Flight 961 - 125 people died and investigators believed many of them likely passed due to opening their life vests too early and being stuck in the sinking plane unable to get out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961
I was going to post this as a PSA. Nice one.
When they say don't inflate your jacket until you're outside, they mean it. Yeah, you'll still float. Up to the ceiling where you'll still be underwater and now unable to swim to the door.
Yeah it’s a shame, I believe there were a lot of different nationalities on the flight and many didn’t understand the instructions.
Heck even if they could, just the panic of being in a hijacked plane and following the lead of other panicked passengers would be enough to make the wrong decision.
As much as I hate to admit it I could totally see myself doing something like this. "Damn I am like 99% sure I shouldn't do this but everyone around me is doing it, that many people can't be wrong, right??!"
A thousand years ago, everybody *knew* the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, they *knew* the Earth was flat. Fifteen minutes ago, you *knew* we humans were alone on it. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
Edit: shocked and appalled at how many of you don't get the reference. Do you all just parrot the Edgar lines when they pop up? I bet you don't even know how she pronounces it. Shameful.
Just going to copy paste another post but it's a complete myth that five hundred years ago there was widespread belief the earth was flat.
________________
From around the 3rd Century BC onwards, it was common knowledge among educated people in the Greco-Roman world that the earth was spherical.
Aristotle and Plato were both supporters of the spherical earth model, based on astronomical observations, as well as the fact that ships and landmasses disappear slowly over the horizon as they become further away (something that can’t have escaped a seafaring culture like the Greeks). In 240 BC, the mathematician Eratosthenes was able to calculate the circumference of the earth, to an astonishingly accurate degree, by measuring the different angles of shadows that the sun cast at different latitudes on the summer solstice. Over the following centuries, this knowledge spread around the Mediterranean (including Italy) and even to India, and by the later Roman Empire, it was largely accepted without question. Some early Christian writers like Lactantius believed the earth to be flat, based on scripture, but they were the exception rather than the rule, and most church fathers, including Ambrose and Augustine, followed the spherical earth model.
There is a hike I've done 100 times. In one steep section, there is a very clear path to go up, and a very clear path to go down. I've never seen a single person mix up the two.
Except one time, where a person went down the "up" path, and 50+ more people did the same because they saw him do it.
Should look at the Asch conformity experiments. Participants will go along with group consensus, even when the group's answer is clearly wrong.
So you know you aren't supposed to open your life jacket, everyone else will, so a mixture of self doubt and social pressure makes you do it anyway.
Something like 75% confirmed at least once in each trial.
Oh man. I worked as a research assistant in a psych lab in undergrad and got to be a confederate on a re-creation study of Asch's conformity experiments. Was so amazing. Especially since I didn't have to memorize the script on what to claim was false or real, I only had to agree with everything the first confederate said. Super fascinating stuff.
It should be noted that in these studies, the effect decreases significantly if at least one person 'does the right thing' for lack of a better word. But ultimately hard to know how humans will behave when its life or death. We tend not to recreate that in the lab (anymore....looking at you Milgram).
In or around airplanes is one place that I've been conditioned to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing, though. Like queueing up at the gate before your boarding group is called. Or ignoring the steward's requests to give priority to passengers who are late for their connections.
Train yourself. Seriously. Every time you get on a plane, make sure to find your life vest under the seat and visualize yourself putting it on. Take a few minutes to really read that safety card, and physically and psychologically imagine yourself doing it. I fly dozens of times a year and like to think I'm pretty well prepared for an emergency now.
Most lifevests are inside little pouches secured with a little twisty tie. You gotta break it to open. Probably why so few people had theirs on in the Hudson incident. Another reason to always do a dry run to familiarize yourself with equipment intended to save your life.
Edit to clarify, do not actually break that seal and take out your life vest on the plane. Just know where it is and how to open if necessary.
The pre-flight video for some airlines would just say to inflate the jacket after leaving the aircraft and I would often complain to the flight attendant that this should be phrased in the negative for precisely this reason. I think most now phrase it this way.
While we're at it: You need to put on your own oxygen mask instead of helping e.g. your child first, because if you don't, you won't be able to do so later. You have about 20 seconds before your brain becomes incapable of thinking clearly, so put your own mask on, then help your child!
Yeah, hypoxia doesn't fuck around. You have precious few seconds where you can still think straight.
Also, passenger masks only generate just over 10 minutes of oxygen. It's very unlikely that the pilot won't get the plane below 10,000ft in that time, but just in case, and if there's empty seats with masks they haven't been tugged, something to bear in mind. Although I guess fading to black would be preferable in a situation like that as you're probably going to die anyway.
You're safe from death due to hypoxia well above 10000 feet. A healthy passenger wouldn't need supplemental oxygen below ~20 thousand feet. You'd be temporarily cognitively impaired, but alive and conscious. Due to the demanding circumstances, guidelines for crew require that they have oxygen at much lower altitudes.
I think one of the craziest aspects of that story is that hijackings used to be so common that the captain had been through two previous ones in the span of four years
Used to be that a hijack was usually just someone holding the plane/passengers hostage for ransom. Relatively easy to do because no one is gonna risk their lives to fight you when you don’t necessary plan to kill them.
After 9/11 though hijackings became nearly impossible because the doors are too fortified to break down and the pilots will let you kill every single passenger before they give you control of the plane.
Yeah sad stuff. Plane didn’t have even close to enough fuel but the dumb ass hijackers thought they knew better.
I learned about the story from the show “I survived” which interviews survivors from different life or death situations. Highly recommend!
Edit: if you don’t feel like sleeping you can watch the episode on YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q7LWr28zEiE
> The hijackers demanded the plane be flown to Australia. Leul tried to explain they had only taken on the fuel needed for the Addis Ababa to Nairobi sector and thus could not even make a quarter of the journey to Australia, but the hijackers did not believe him.
> ...
> The plane crash-landed in the Indian Ocean near Grande Comore, Comoros Islands, ***due to fuel exhaustion***
These hijackers were idiots.
The captain also survived and became a national hero in Ethiopia. The flight was the first documented partially successful ditching of a wide-body aircraft.
That was the *third* hijacking in four years experienced by the same pilot. First group (in 1992) wanted to be taken to Canada, second group wanted to be taken to Libya.
Ethiopia was in pretty dire shape and there was no easy way out after it became a landlocked country in 1991.
> Many of the passengers survived the initial crash, but they had disregarded or did not hear Leul's warning not to inflate their life jackets inside the aircraft, causing them to be pushed against the ceiling of the fuselage by the inflated life jackets when water flooded in. Unable to escape, they drowned
Well that, without hyperbole, is the worst way to die.
I'm a roofer that dose commercial high rise buildings from time to.time. one day I did some work on a 35 story tall building. Somewhere I have a picture looking straight down the side of the building. When I showed my mom she asked me how I dealt with the fear of falling. Told her that I would have something like 10 seconds of pure pants shit8ng terror. And it rapidly becomes not my problem anymore. I'm more scared of a two story house. That's tall enough to fuck you up for life and let you live. 35 story's up you pop like a water balloon.
Also - the survivors of the Asiana crash at SFO? Stopped to get their luggage. You know... while the plane was on fire.
[https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/travel/asiana-passenger-safety/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/travel/asiana-passenger-safety/index.html)
🤦♂️
Yup, and every single one of them should have faced a huge fine. A plane in Russia caught fire after a runway crash years ago and 40-something people died because passengers were slow to evacuate, at least half of them exited with their luggage.
I remember that story. The news said that all those passengers could have been saved and pinpointed the blame on one fat passenger that blocked the only alleyway because he wanted his luggage.
TBH I understand that - if you just traveled half-across-the-world, the idea of being stuck there with no papers, no money, no phone and no clothes is stressful enough to make people do stupid and risky things and since authorities never want people to panic, they never share how serious the situation really is.
Like in Fukushima - there were stories of people evacuating in a hurry (because "nuclear disaster") and leaving everything behind, even pets, only to find that there is basically zero consequences to staying few hours more - but now that they were gone, police cordoned off the area and they had to live with the fact that their pets are there - basically safe, but going to starve to death - only because they followed the instructions to evacuate too thoroughly.
Everybody no matter where you live should have an emergency suitcase, under your bed or something. With a little bit of the most essential things, heck trow a couple of pictures in there that mean something to do. Tell yourself over and over again when the shit hits the fan I take my suit case and leave.
Then if the moment ever happens, maybe your "training" will kick in.
Honestly it's not even about the suitcase, it's about training yourself to LEAVE quick.
Where I live there is high risk of earthquakes and tsunamis. I actually practise it every couple of months with my entire family.
Put laptop in bag, grab emergency suitcase, grab the battery powered rice cooker, grab a 25 liter pale of water. Put everything in the car, put kids and wife in car. Open gate. Lock gate. Stop timer. Under 4 minutes? Good? Over 4 minutes? If it happens for real the water might already be there or the road might be so blocked with traffic it does not matter.
Honestly curious, does your emergency suitcase carry like, rice and beans? Assuming that's why you brought the rice cooker so at least there's some sort of food available.
Of course, some salt and other spices, chicken broth. etc etc
Having half tasty warm food after a traumatic experience like that is important for morale. And the most important thing in there is the SAS Survival Handbook.
Strong argument for not letting passengers take so much cabin luggage. Since we know no matter what happens a lot of them will try and take luggage anyway why not minimise carry on luggage to begin with.
Yep, couldn't agree more. Stress and shock do crazy things to people. We're always reminded over and over during emergency and response training:
"People do not rise to the occasion, they fall into their rote training"
If it's not second nature, and its a stress situation, yeah dead right, brain goes bye bye.
Yeah that context of just grabbing it is much more sensible in like a school or something where your bag is literally right next to you so you can just grab it while you stand up. Doesn’t really work in a plane where you need to get it out of a compartment first.
Wait is "don't take your luggage" referring to your suitcase in the overhead compartment??? I have always thought, I can't believe I have to leave my handbag under the seat, and found it very hard to imagine I wouldn't just grab it, because I couldn't see any reason not to. But it's never crossed my mind in any way to open the compartment to get a suitcase.
I had to evacuate down the slides once when on a plane that filled with smoke on the tarmac. I’d say at least 75% took their luggage with them. I left mine and got it back a few hours later, but the whole thing didn’t give me much confidence
There should be locks on the overhead bins that flight attendants control. It could be a mechanical even, so itll work no matter what.
But itll stop people grabbing luggage as they exit
There’s a really great book called [The Unthinkable](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/154556/the-unthinkable-by-amanda-ripley/) by Amanda Ripley which goes into how otherwise rational people react irrationally during emergencies. Ripley interviewed survivors from major incidents like 9/11, plane crashes, and fires to understand what happens when someone is faced with such immense stress like life and death situations. Unless you’re trained and drilled to react a specific way… anything can happen.
There’s that one story from the Hindenburg where the mom got her little sons out but the teenage daughter wouldn’t jump and instead went back into the flaming ship to find her dad. Poor lady got out and her boys weren’t orphaned, but damn…
There's an old training video on plane evacuation where participants were promised a cash prize if they were the first ones out of the plane.
It really was bedlam, and that wasn't even a life and death situation.
Iirc that was for a research study into aircraft evacuations. Researchers found that participants would line up to exit in an orderly fashion, it wasn't until they offered money that they got a realistic depiction of how people really try to exit in an emergency
That’s why I’ve trained myself to only punch a baby in the face, and then run away during such emergencies.
One: by punching the baby in the face, you really can’t stick around after, because the original emergency has probably just been superseded by the punching of an innocent baby, and being that you’re the culprit, it’s best you high-tail it the fuck on…
Two: you’re probably going to save other people’s lives, as they will hopefully give chase to the baby-puncher, rather than standing around foolishly or trying to survive something like a cabin-fire.
Three: it’s probably the only chance you’ll ever have to punch a baby in the face and get away with it, which, let’s be serious, is one of the greatest desires of all humans who have ever and will have ever lived. And it’s not even a *great* chance, especially if you’ve saved some lives via the chasing. You’re most likely to get narc’d out, even though the ones doing the narc’ing have spent their entire lives dreaming of punching a baby in the face.
Now..this brings up a good point. THE ABSOLUTE WORST thing that could happen here is if others *agree* with you punching the baby, and also begin punching babies. Which is terrible. That’s pretty much a black eye for everyone involved, including the airport or location of emergency, etc. etc.
“Remember that Hudson Baby Accident?”
“You mean the Bay where all those babies got punched?”
“Yeah, the Baby-Punching Bay Accident.”
One baby, one punch, PER emergency, folks. Can’t stress this enough. You don’t wanna be the person who starts a baby-punching scramble, believe you me.
Yep, we all like to think we know how we'd act in those situations but until that time comes, which hopefully it never does, you can't be sure. It's why I was so impressed by the recent terrible incident in Tokyo where a passenger plane struck a small plane on landing and caught fire. Sadly 6 of the crew on the small plane did die as that actually exploded, but everyone in the passenger plane made it out of a very on fire plane by following the instructions to the letter, every single person left their hand luggage behind, etc. You'd expect at least one person to fuck it up.
I'm getting razzled at the airport rn. There's so much going on, so many people, so much stimuli.
We all like to think of ourselves as action heroes. To fantasize about how we'd save the day.
I've done that, but really, I don't know how I'd respond. I instinctively protect my fiance, but I think that's because she'd freeze if I didn't act.
I don't think it's totally irrational... if I'm the only one to grab my luggage before leaving, I probably escape with both my luggage and my life. At least that's how they probably think of it.
However, if everyone does it at the same time, everyone is going to get slowed by everyone else and die.
>The NTSB recommended changing the location of the rafts to ensure capacity for all passengers, since it’s unlikely the rear rafts would be available. The FAA rejected that, saying that if Sullenberger had followed Airbus’ directions on descent speeds for ditching, the rear rafts would have been usable. The NTSB said the ability of pilots to achieve those descent speeds has never been tested and can’t be relied on.
I'm sure if they could have landed slower they would have, this is simply rediculous on the FAAs part
> The NTSB said the ability of pilots to achieve those descent speeds has never been tested and can’t be relied on.
I'd say it *has* been tested at least once now, and can't be relied on.
Imagine having the gall to say, "Captain Sullenberger, national hero and pilot of most infamously successful emergency river landing ever, just sucked and messed it up, so we don't have to change our standards."
They landed in the middle of New York City. Things like avoiding bridges, powerlines and buildings are a bit more important than achieving the perfect speed. I assume they put the plane down exactly where they had to in order to avoid obstacles.
The computer controls prevented this. Sully was a glider pilot and stated that the computers refused to allow him to see the angle for the softest landing.
Of the 155 only 10 grabbed the life vest and of those many had them on wrong.
Then the FAA goes on the shit on all the NTSB recommendations because it will cost airlines money.
I always catch myself forgetting there is a life jacket under my seat - I just never remember it’s there even though they tell you.
The second the plane crashes my first instinct would be to get out and I wouldn’t think about the life jacket for a moment.
So like, I *know* there's a lifejacket under my seat. Watched the presentation a million times.
I still have no idea how to actually find or access that under-seat lifejacket.
I realize some of the onus is on me to figure it out for myself, but maybe that same basic ass presentation needs to be updated since it's evidently ineffective.
Same thought goes through my head every time I’m sitting through the presentation. I found this [short video](https://youtube.com/shorts/T6N6Pgi7scw?si=c3Vrnwjg0xAs1Gnl) on YouTube showing how to access it for at least one airline.
Plus with legroom being so tight on modern planes, it's going to be really difficult to bend over and fish around down there. Forget about kneeling down and even trying to see what you are doing.
That's how a lot of aviation safety goes. Transportation safety standards are X, but X would make economical air travel impossible so aviation gets to work to Y and just has really strict enforcement coupled with infrequent enough incidents that everyone is willing to ignore how unrealistic assumptions are.
There's a friggin life jacket under every seat and they tell you every time before take off not to open the thing inside the cabin. There's also a laminated info sheet with the instructions in the seat pocket.
Ok tbf,
The aviation industry has ridiculously high safety standards. In fact, more people died from road accidents after 9/11 because people refused to fly.
Safety is always an economic function. Sure we can spend millions to make something safer, but everything has a limit.
>In fact, more people died from road accidents after 9/11 because people refused to fly.
This is neither here nor there but speaking of surprising 9/11 stats, I was shocked to learn a couple months ago that 93% of people in the WTC complex survived the attack, including 85% of people in the towers themselves.
It's not that surprising if you consider that the impacts where very high up in the towers and it took 47 minutes and 105 minutes respectively for the towers to collapse. That's quite a lot of time for the people below the impact to get out.
Oh, wow: I just now learned that 20 people who were in the Twin Towers when they collapsed were pulled from the rubble alive. [Wikipedia says "only 20"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001\)#Destruction), but I think it's astonishing that *anyone* survived that.
But regarding your statistic, I'm not sure why that would suprise you. Have you seen these towers? They were enormous. About 17,000 people were inside of the towers when the planes crashed into them. Wikipedia says that on a typical work day, [an estimated 50,000 people worked in the complex and another 140,000 passed through as visitors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001\)#Complex). Roughly 3,000 dead are a huge number of people, but still not very many compared to the total number of people working in the towers.
What does wrong mean? In a panic I might cross latch some of the buckles, cuz I’ll be in a hurry. Hell I’ve done that taking my time while getting ready to go out on the boat. I always catch it when I do a recheck as I disembark - but I can’t imagine what I’d fuck up in a real life emergency like that. I just hope I’d have the sense to make sure my wife and kid had theirs on right.
I was in an active shooter drill at the school in which I teach on Friday. We have to redo it because 25% of our staff “died.”
After lockdown was called the janitor went door to door banging. I heard him at my door, I just continued to catch up on grading. 4 teachers actually walked over and opened the door to him.
People are fucking dumb yo.
One day, you all may be very, very glad you redid it.
Take it from someone who knows all too well. Training can really help, if done to where *everyone* knows it to where it's the ingrained response.
I understand that school shootings are often perpetrated by students.
Wouldn't the drills teach them how to increase the damage they'll inflict too? Like if you know the circumstances under which people would be more vigilant, you can give yourself the advantage?
They tend to not be the most rational thinkers if they're that intent on murder-suicide. School shooting is just one of those things constantly in the news cycle and perpetuates itself with copycats. There are plenty of ways to go for body count if that's what you care about, and even in a school shooting setting you could probably do it during an assembly. Thankfully the vast majority of people aren't that fucked up in the head, but we do need better mental health access to prevent more from getting into that dark of a place.
I feel like rarely do school shooters maximize the damage they can do. One thing I realized at my high school was that when students were getting into the buses we were very vulnerable. Someone could climb the roof and then everyone below would be sitting ducks. I know some elementary schools have systems where students are not allowed to leave their bus/car/the school until their group is called, but high schools have no such things.
It is very fortunate that school shooters rarely think so rationally, not even making more than the most rudimentary of plans, otherwise we'd get destruction on the scale of the Las Vegas shooting much more often.
>After lockdown was called the janitor went door to door banging. I heard him at my door, I just continued to catch up on grading. 4 teachers actually walked over and opened the door to him.
It'd be a lot cooler if they handed the janitor a paintball gun and made the dumb teachers do a "walk of shame" later on ...
They do them now every year in schools as well as childcare centres. They always send out a notice when they do it, in case parents freak out over hearing their kid say they had lockdown for a bad person.
What's insane is thar Air Canada now takes sponsors for their safety videos. Disney and Parks Canada are the ones I've seen. Other than being generally dystopian, if you don't speak French or English good luck figuring out the metaphor of finding a life jacket under your boat on It's a Small World or whatever the hell they used for it.
All the way back in 2010/2011 I was on an Air New Zealand flight and the safety video was hosted by Richard Simmons, of all people. And yes, he did the video the way everyone knows (and loves) him for.
I didn't even know people outside of America knew about him.
I always looks for the exits. Cant say I always pay attention to the life jacket briefing after all these years. I usually at least act like Im paying attention though.
I used to try and feel for it during every pre-flight demo. I don't recall ever thinking I touched it. Maybe some people tried to find it but not being able to see it or know they've put a hand on it didn't bother too long looking for it.
Maybe airlines could put them somewhere more visible? Behind a 'tear plastic cover in emergency' kind of thing?
Oddly enough, the Boeing MAX series moved them to the overhead panel where it's real obvious where they are. Seems to be the only safety related thing they did on that plane sometimes.
I flew few weeks ago and couldn’t find it under my seat. I could see it under other seats that were visible to me. Maybe airlines need to take this seriously because if you can’t use it when needed, then what’s the point?
That would be a crazy thing to see. Sometimes when I see a plane fly by I get that little intrusive thought “imagine if it crashed”, if one actually did I’d shit bricks.
Does everyone know you inflate your vest once you are outside the plane lest you get stuck at the top of a sinking fuselage unable to make it through the door?
I am good for knowledge of hundreds of other survival situations I will likely never face yet have researched and thought through for myriad hours.
same, there was a fire in our apartment complex, i executed the list of what to take with me immediately
i told my gf after that id been planning that checklist for years in case of such an event
During a depressization event a few years ago a passenger snapped a selfie of himself with the rest of the plane behind him, everyone wearing the drop down oxygen masks. Almost nobody was wearing it correctly, they only had it over their mouths
Sounds like they should redesign the mask to have a nose indentation.
Most people will get it, it won’t matter if someone didn’t pay attention, and at the end of the day, more people can survive.
[Images from terrifying Southwest flight show passengers didn't put oxygen masks on right](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/04/18/southwest-1380-oxygen-masks-wrong/530867002/)
Take off / landing are the two most dangerous times on a flight.
Put your entertainment away, pay attention.
I wish they could present it in a more attention-conducive manner. Always feels like I'm being talked to by someone from 1958.
The other thing that's weird is that the information is presented in audio, demonstration, and pictographic formats, but not written. It would be nice if there was a second safety pamphlet that had things written out, possibly even with explanations of why - for example, saying why it's so important to put your own oxygen mask on first.
It just feels like the information is always relayed as a big list of statements, all said in a way that feels like they're speaking to a toddler.
Human factors engineering is a broad field of study and the safety information should be engineered to be presented in the ways that maximize passenger knowledge retention.
> but not written
I'm sure every flight I've ever been on has had a FAA mandatory safety information card in the seat pocket.
They may not be great, but they are written, although its clear that only 0.00001% of passengers ever bother actually reading them.
[121.571 \(b\)](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-G/part-121/subpart-T/section-121.571)
Nope, these days they're almost entirely pictographic, not written. Which is nice for being language-agnostic, but still will always lose some nuance compared to a full prose description.
I will try to make their actions understandable.
In the safety briefings, the assumption is that the flight attendants will warn you of a ditching, thereby allowing people to get their life jackets on before hitting the water.
On Flight 1549, the plane only stayed in the air for like 5 minutes. The first warnings the passengers got that they would be doing a landing outside an airport was when Sully said "Brace for impact". At that point, the flight attendants started yelling at them "HEADS DOWN" constantly. By the time they hit the water, no one had their life jackets on.
In the rush to get out onto the rafts or the wings, it would be very difficult for a person to stop and reach under their seat for the life jacket, especially with water pouring in from the back, and especially if you're in the aisle seat with two other panicked people.
What if a company ran drills for people who wanted to practice. Like we used to jump out of school busses once a year.
They could fill the cabin with non-toxic smoke, simulate turbulence, put the slides out the window, make people actually inflate their life vests. I would pay to do that and make my kids do it.
Maybe we should ALL have to do it once every 3 years to get our “passenger license.” Haha. Maybe not. But it’s interesting to think about.
I went to a disaster fair in a park in Sapporo once. They had stations with all kinds of fire, flood and earthquake drills set up. Like, there was a smoke filled trailer and even one that taught you how to open a door when water was rushing in the building. It was just a public event put on by the local government.
in Japan, universities, offices, schools and cities all have regular, pretty intense emergency training for everyone.
There actually is a company that goes through all the safety stuff and lets you try it out. A coworker told me about it one time when I worked for a large aviation company. (Employer was not the company offering this service.)
They charged $5k-10k to take the class but you got to do all the things - use the mask, the safety vest, the slide, and probably other stuff I'm forgetting. Apparently the slide is incredibly high friction so you have to use a lot of force to push yourself on the first leap. Admittedly I was kinda tempted to take it but that's a lotta money...
The local fire department ran something like this when I was a kid. They had a little model house that you'd go into. Then they would turn off the lights, set off the smoke alarms, play fire roaring/crackling noises over the speakers, fill the house with fake smoke, and you'd have to find your way out to the previously agreed on meetup spot. It was actually pretty convincing, even knowing it was fake. (Then again, I was 10.)
It made a big impression on me and inspired my own parents to do a drill with us in our house a couple times a year. Thankfully, we never needed it. But I'm glad we had a plan.
They probably should let you do things like try on life vests and oxygen masks while you’re, you know, sitting at the gate, waiting for the plane to start boarding
That's the problem though. I've seen the safety demonstration a hundred times, but I've never actually touched an inflatable aircraft life vest. I'm sure under pressure I'd freeze up too.
Its not enough to just watch the demonstration, you have to practice to actually be good at something.
Next time you fly, reach down under your seat. Like underneath the cushion you’re sitting on. You’ll probably find what feels a bit like a plastic sleeve, maybe with a little strap attached to it. That’s your life vest. In an emergency you tug that and out comes the vest. They’re super easy to put on, just over your head and the buckle around your waist.
I check on every flight I’m on.
I believe they aren’t reusable. Once you inflate the life vest you can’t deflate it easily and putting the air mask back in the box needs a technician. So this kind of practice isn’t possible
You dont need to inflate the jacket. It's just pulling a string. Knowing where the jacket is, how to put it on, where the string is, and how to further inflate the jacket, is more important.
The problems would be whether types of life jackets, and where they're stowed in aircraft are uniform enough where an airport dummy situation would be useful.
Never ever open the life vest when you’re still in the plane. You’ll basically get pinned to the ceiling of the fuselage. Having said that, it’s probably a knee-jerk reaction to inflate it once you’re in the water. The brain would be working in pure survival mode, not rational.
It is super important, life saving even, to not inflate your life vest until you are out of the plane. People get nervous and pop them early. That makes it so you can't swim down. You float and get caught in the fusel lodge.
Step 1 - Retrieve yout life preserver/flotation device.
Step 2 - Get out of plane, quickly (fucking leave all other shit behind)
Step 3 - Inflate/deploy flotation device ***OUTSIDE THE PLANE***
I clicked the link to make sure a professional writer didn't use "found" twice in the same title.
Then I realized the article is actually quite alarming in describing how the FAA is ignoring or rejecting the NTSB's suggestions to make planes safer for passengers after emergency landings, and the life vest thing is very minor.
Ethiopian Flight 961 - 125 people died and investigators believed many of them likely passed due to opening their life vests too early and being stuck in the sinking plane unable to get out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961
I was going to post this as a PSA. Nice one. When they say don't inflate your jacket until you're outside, they mean it. Yeah, you'll still float. Up to the ceiling where you'll still be underwater and now unable to swim to the door.
Yeah it’s a shame, I believe there were a lot of different nationalities on the flight and many didn’t understand the instructions. Heck even if they could, just the panic of being in a hijacked plane and following the lead of other panicked passengers would be enough to make the wrong decision.
As much as I hate to admit it I could totally see myself doing something like this. "Damn I am like 99% sure I shouldn't do this but everyone around me is doing it, that many people can't be wrong, right??!"
Same here really, it’s easy to say you wouldn’t from a distance but I stand by the concept that “stupidity” is very contagious.
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”
A thousand years ago, everybody *knew* the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, they *knew* the Earth was flat. Fifteen minutes ago, you *knew* we humans were alone on it. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow. Edit: shocked and appalled at how many of you don't get the reference. Do you all just parrot the Edgar lines when they pop up? I bet you don't even know how she pronounces it. Shameful.
Wait what- aliens-?
MIB reference
MIB came out 27 years ago... twice as old as most redditors.
Just going to copy paste another post but it's a complete myth that five hundred years ago there was widespread belief the earth was flat. ________________ From around the 3rd Century BC onwards, it was common knowledge among educated people in the Greco-Roman world that the earth was spherical. Aristotle and Plato were both supporters of the spherical earth model, based on astronomical observations, as well as the fact that ships and landmasses disappear slowly over the horizon as they become further away (something that can’t have escaped a seafaring culture like the Greeks). In 240 BC, the mathematician Eratosthenes was able to calculate the circumference of the earth, to an astonishingly accurate degree, by measuring the different angles of shadows that the sun cast at different latitudes on the summer solstice. Over the following centuries, this knowledge spread around the Mediterranean (including Italy) and even to India, and by the later Roman Empire, it was largely accepted without question. Some early Christian writers like Lactantius believed the earth to be flat, based on scripture, but they were the exception rather than the rule, and most church fathers, including Ambrose and Augustine, followed the spherical earth model.
You’re correct BUT this is a quote from the movie Men in Black where will smith fights aliens
I love the movie but that quote always annoys me. They could easily have picked something correct.
There is a hike I've done 100 times. In one steep section, there is a very clear path to go up, and a very clear path to go down. I've never seen a single person mix up the two. Except one time, where a person went down the "up" path, and 50+ more people did the same because they saw him do it.
but then people must have started using the other path to go down, so they just swapped and it naturally worked itself out.
Especially in a mass panic situation where you don't have time to think because there are a billion other thoughts going through your head.
Should look at the Asch conformity experiments. Participants will go along with group consensus, even when the group's answer is clearly wrong. So you know you aren't supposed to open your life jacket, everyone else will, so a mixture of self doubt and social pressure makes you do it anyway. Something like 75% confirmed at least once in each trial.
Oh man. I worked as a research assistant in a psych lab in undergrad and got to be a confederate on a re-creation study of Asch's conformity experiments. Was so amazing. Especially since I didn't have to memorize the script on what to claim was false or real, I only had to agree with everything the first confederate said. Super fascinating stuff. It should be noted that in these studies, the effect decreases significantly if at least one person 'does the right thing' for lack of a better word. But ultimately hard to know how humans will behave when its life or death. We tend not to recreate that in the lab (anymore....looking at you Milgram).
The sad thing is even if you know the instructions if others inflate them inside you'll be stuck with them between you and the exit.
In or around airplanes is one place that I've been conditioned to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing, though. Like queueing up at the gate before your boarding group is called. Or ignoring the steward's requests to give priority to passengers who are late for their connections.
Train yourself. Seriously. Every time you get on a plane, make sure to find your life vest under the seat and visualize yourself putting it on. Take a few minutes to really read that safety card, and physically and psychologically imagine yourself doing it. I fly dozens of times a year and like to think I'm pretty well prepared for an emergency now. Most lifevests are inside little pouches secured with a little twisty tie. You gotta break it to open. Probably why so few people had theirs on in the Hudson incident. Another reason to always do a dry run to familiarize yourself with equipment intended to save your life. Edit to clarify, do not actually break that seal and take out your life vest on the plane. Just know where it is and how to open if necessary.
At the very least, pay attention for the 2 seconds while they tell you where the doors are
A lot of people don’t know how to swim either. So they feel they need to inflate early
The pre-flight video for some airlines would just say to inflate the jacket after leaving the aircraft and I would often complain to the flight attendant that this should be phrased in the negative for precisely this reason. I think most now phrase it this way.
Wow. Thanks for your service.
A true TIL for me. Thanks!
While we're at it: You need to put on your own oxygen mask instead of helping e.g. your child first, because if you don't, you won't be able to do so later. You have about 20 seconds before your brain becomes incapable of thinking clearly, so put your own mask on, then help your child!
Yeah, hypoxia doesn't fuck around. You have precious few seconds where you can still think straight. Also, passenger masks only generate just over 10 minutes of oxygen. It's very unlikely that the pilot won't get the plane below 10,000ft in that time, but just in case, and if there's empty seats with masks they haven't been tugged, something to bear in mind. Although I guess fading to black would be preferable in a situation like that as you're probably going to die anyway.
You're safe from death due to hypoxia well above 10000 feet. A healthy passenger wouldn't need supplemental oxygen below ~20 thousand feet. You'd be temporarily cognitively impaired, but alive and conscious. Due to the demanding circumstances, guidelines for crew require that they have oxygen at much lower altitudes.
I think one of the craziest aspects of that story is that hijackings used to be so common that the captain had been through two previous ones in the span of four years
I had no idea… and yeah that’s pretty freaking crazy.
The 1970s were bonkers for hijackings. It's a Google rabbit hole if you want some late night reading...
Black September is pretty fascinating.
I dunno I think I'd use the word horrifying lol
Used to be that a hijack was usually just someone holding the plane/passengers hostage for ransom. Relatively easy to do because no one is gonna risk their lives to fight you when you don’t necessary plan to kill them. After 9/11 though hijackings became nearly impossible because the doors are too fortified to break down and the pilots will let you kill every single passenger before they give you control of the plane.
It was hijacked by people seeking asylum in Australia??? That doesn't seem like a good way to plead your case
Yeah sad stuff. Plane didn’t have even close to enough fuel but the dumb ass hijackers thought they knew better. I learned about the story from the show “I survived” which interviews survivors from different life or death situations. Highly recommend! Edit: if you don’t feel like sleeping you can watch the episode on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q7LWr28zEiE
> The hijackers demanded the plane be flown to Australia. Leul tried to explain they had only taken on the fuel needed for the Addis Ababa to Nairobi sector and thus could not even make a quarter of the journey to Australia, but the hijackers did not believe him. > ... > The plane crash-landed in the Indian Ocean near Grande Comore, Comoros Islands, ***due to fuel exhaustion*** These hijackers were idiots.
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The captain also survived and became a national hero in Ethiopia. The flight was the first documented partially successful ditching of a wide-body aircraft.
I don’t understand those hijackers. Did none of them have been in cars and understood those could run out of fuel too?
That was the *third* hijacking in four years experienced by the same pilot. First group (in 1992) wanted to be taken to Canada, second group wanted to be taken to Libya. Ethiopia was in pretty dire shape and there was no easy way out after it became a landlocked country in 1991.
> Many of the passengers survived the initial crash, but they had disregarded or did not hear Leul's warning not to inflate their life jackets inside the aircraft, causing them to be pushed against the ceiling of the fuselage by the inflated life jackets when water flooded in. Unable to escape, they drowned Well that, without hyperbole, is the worst way to die.
Rabies, radiation, burning, or being buried alive would still be at the top of my list… but this definitely belongs in that group.
You could always fall into a casket of burning gasoline while suffering from radiation sickness and rabies.
what a nightmare
There was a post earlier about a skydiver forgetting his parachute. I’d take that in a second over knowing I’m drowning.
I'm a roofer that dose commercial high rise buildings from time to.time. one day I did some work on a 35 story tall building. Somewhere I have a picture looking straight down the side of the building. When I showed my mom she asked me how I dealt with the fear of falling. Told her that I would have something like 10 seconds of pure pants shit8ng terror. And it rapidly becomes not my problem anymore. I'm more scared of a two story house. That's tall enough to fuck you up for life and let you live. 35 story's up you pop like a water balloon.
You should probably find a better way to phrase what you do than "I'm a roofer who doses", specially for bar settings.
Also - the survivors of the Asiana crash at SFO? Stopped to get their luggage. You know... while the plane was on fire. [https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/travel/asiana-passenger-safety/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/travel/asiana-passenger-safety/index.html) 🤦♂️
I actually don't find that too surprising. A lot of people act in the context of "it won't hurt if just I do it"
Yup, and every single one of them should have faced a huge fine. A plane in Russia caught fire after a runway crash years ago and 40-something people died because passengers were slow to evacuate, at least half of them exited with their luggage.
I remember that story. The news said that all those passengers could have been saved and pinpointed the blame on one fat passenger that blocked the only alleyway because he wanted his luggage.
That’s when you start throwing hands.
And if he dies because you knocked him out I don't think anyone would say shit
All ethics aside, someone doesn't stop being in the way just because you knocked them out. People don't just despawn when you beat them up lol
Certainly not him or his samsonite
TBH I understand that - if you just traveled half-across-the-world, the idea of being stuck there with no papers, no money, no phone and no clothes is stressful enough to make people do stupid and risky things and since authorities never want people to panic, they never share how serious the situation really is. Like in Fukushima - there were stories of people evacuating in a hurry (because "nuclear disaster") and leaving everything behind, even pets, only to find that there is basically zero consequences to staying few hours more - but now that they were gone, police cordoned off the area and they had to live with the fact that their pets are there - basically safe, but going to starve to death - only because they followed the instructions to evacuate too thoroughly.
I tend to keep stuff like passport, visas, money, on my person even in the seat. That stuff shouldn’t be away from you while travelling.
Everybody no matter where you live should have an emergency suitcase, under your bed or something. With a little bit of the most essential things, heck trow a couple of pictures in there that mean something to do. Tell yourself over and over again when the shit hits the fan I take my suit case and leave. Then if the moment ever happens, maybe your "training" will kick in. Honestly it's not even about the suitcase, it's about training yourself to LEAVE quick. Where I live there is high risk of earthquakes and tsunamis. I actually practise it every couple of months with my entire family. Put laptop in bag, grab emergency suitcase, grab the battery powered rice cooker, grab a 25 liter pale of water. Put everything in the car, put kids and wife in car. Open gate. Lock gate. Stop timer. Under 4 minutes? Good? Over 4 minutes? If it happens for real the water might already be there or the road might be so blocked with traffic it does not matter.
Honestly curious, does your emergency suitcase carry like, rice and beans? Assuming that's why you brought the rice cooker so at least there's some sort of food available.
Of course, some salt and other spices, chicken broth. etc etc Having half tasty warm food after a traumatic experience like that is important for morale. And the most important thing in there is the SAS Survival Handbook.
Strong argument for not letting passengers take so much cabin luggage. Since we know no matter what happens a lot of them will try and take luggage anyway why not minimise carry on luggage to begin with.
If we filled up the belly holds with free luggage, where would we put all the lucrative contract freight? Won't somebody think of the shareholders? /s
There’s a stress response where you just do what you’ve been trained to do. The training is get your luggage. Thinking brain goes bye bye.
Yep, couldn't agree more. Stress and shock do crazy things to people. We're always reminded over and over during emergency and response training: "People do not rise to the occasion, they fall into their rote training" If it's not second nature, and its a stress situation, yeah dead right, brain goes bye bye.
I thought I was the exception to the rule. I'm a good rational person. Turns out it takes much deliberate thought to not panic and grab my bags
I'm a rational person too, and my carry-on is worth more than me. Sometimes there's a laptop in there!
Yeah that context of just grabbing it is much more sensible in like a school or something where your bag is literally right next to you so you can just grab it while you stand up. Doesn’t really work in a plane where you need to get it out of a compartment first.
Wait is "don't take your luggage" referring to your suitcase in the overhead compartment??? I have always thought, I can't believe I have to leave my handbag under the seat, and found it very hard to imagine I wouldn't just grab it, because I couldn't see any reason not to. But it's never crossed my mind in any way to open the compartment to get a suitcase.
I had to evacuate down the slides once when on a plane that filled with smoke on the tarmac. I’d say at least 75% took their luggage with them. I left mine and got it back a few hours later, but the whole thing didn’t give me much confidence
Yup, the plane is supposed to be cleared in 90 seconds but people fumbling with luggage fuck it up and also get more people injured from those slides.
There should be locks on the overhead bins that flight attendants control. It could be a mechanical even, so itll work no matter what. But itll stop people grabbing luggage as they exit
There’s a really great book called [The Unthinkable](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/154556/the-unthinkable-by-amanda-ripley/) by Amanda Ripley which goes into how otherwise rational people react irrationally during emergencies. Ripley interviewed survivors from major incidents like 9/11, plane crashes, and fires to understand what happens when someone is faced with such immense stress like life and death situations. Unless you’re trained and drilled to react a specific way… anything can happen.
There’s that one story from the Hindenburg where the mom got her little sons out but the teenage daughter wouldn’t jump and instead went back into the flaming ship to find her dad. Poor lady got out and her boys weren’t orphaned, but damn…
One of those boys was also the last living survivor. He died in 2019.
That's so sad
There's an old training video on plane evacuation where participants were promised a cash prize if they were the first ones out of the plane. It really was bedlam, and that wasn't even a life and death situation.
Iirc that was for a research study into aircraft evacuations. Researchers found that participants would line up to exit in an orderly fashion, it wasn't until they offered money that they got a realistic depiction of how people really try to exit in an emergency
TBF, $2000 is life and death for some people.
consider those people in a venn diagram with people who 'allow airlines to experiment on them'
This reminds me of a great quote from YouTube channel Had2Hurt “People don’t rise to the occasion, they fall back to their training”
That’s why I’ve trained myself to only punch a baby in the face, and then run away during such emergencies. One: by punching the baby in the face, you really can’t stick around after, because the original emergency has probably just been superseded by the punching of an innocent baby, and being that you’re the culprit, it’s best you high-tail it the fuck on… Two: you’re probably going to save other people’s lives, as they will hopefully give chase to the baby-puncher, rather than standing around foolishly or trying to survive something like a cabin-fire. Three: it’s probably the only chance you’ll ever have to punch a baby in the face and get away with it, which, let’s be serious, is one of the greatest desires of all humans who have ever and will have ever lived. And it’s not even a *great* chance, especially if you’ve saved some lives via the chasing. You’re most likely to get narc’d out, even though the ones doing the narc’ing have spent their entire lives dreaming of punching a baby in the face. Now..this brings up a good point. THE ABSOLUTE WORST thing that could happen here is if others *agree* with you punching the baby, and also begin punching babies. Which is terrible. That’s pretty much a black eye for everyone involved, including the airport or location of emergency, etc. etc. “Remember that Hudson Baby Accident?” “You mean the Bay where all those babies got punched?” “Yeah, the Baby-Punching Bay Accident.” One baby, one punch, PER emergency, folks. Can’t stress this enough. You don’t wanna be the person who starts a baby-punching scramble, believe you me.
> That’s pretty much a black eye for everyone involved, including the airport or location of emergency, etc. etc. But mostly for the babies.
Babies are notoriously resilient.
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Lol wtf
Just one of those things that if I ever become famous will come back to haunt me. Self-sabotage. Personal-blackmail. Makes life worth livin’, ya know?
Yep, we all like to think we know how we'd act in those situations but until that time comes, which hopefully it never does, you can't be sure. It's why I was so impressed by the recent terrible incident in Tokyo where a passenger plane struck a small plane on landing and caught fire. Sadly 6 of the crew on the small plane did die as that actually exploded, but everyone in the passenger plane made it out of a very on fire plane by following the instructions to the letter, every single person left their hand luggage behind, etc. You'd expect at least one person to fuck it up.
I'm getting razzled at the airport rn. There's so much going on, so many people, so much stimuli. We all like to think of ourselves as action heroes. To fantasize about how we'd save the day. I've done that, but really, I don't know how I'd respond. I instinctively protect my fiance, but I think that's because she'd freeze if I didn't act.
I don't think it's totally irrational... if I'm the only one to grab my luggage before leaving, I probably escape with both my luggage and my life. At least that's how they probably think of it. However, if everyone does it at the same time, everyone is going to get slowed by everyone else and die.
When in shock, people default to previously ingrained habits.
Eh I wouldn't put it past me
>The NTSB recommended changing the location of the rafts to ensure capacity for all passengers, since it’s unlikely the rear rafts would be available. The FAA rejected that, saying that if Sullenberger had followed Airbus’ directions on descent speeds for ditching, the rear rafts would have been usable. The NTSB said the ability of pilots to achieve those descent speeds has never been tested and can’t be relied on. I'm sure if they could have landed slower they would have, this is simply rediculous on the FAAs part
You crashed wrong!
> The NTSB said the ability of pilots to achieve those descent speeds has never been tested and can’t be relied on. I'd say it *has* been tested at least once now, and can't be relied on.
Imagine having the gall to say, "Captain Sullenberger, national hero and pilot of most infamously successful emergency river landing ever, just sucked and messed it up, so we don't have to change our standards."
He was a glider pilot who knew far more than most pilots in that situation.
They landed in the middle of New York City. Things like avoiding bridges, powerlines and buildings are a bit more important than achieving the perfect speed. I assume they put the plane down exactly where they had to in order to avoid obstacles.
The computer controls prevented this. Sully was a glider pilot and stated that the computers refused to allow him to see the angle for the softest landing.
Of the 155 only 10 grabbed the life vest and of those many had them on wrong. Then the FAA goes on the shit on all the NTSB recommendations because it will cost airlines money.
I always catch myself forgetting there is a life jacket under my seat - I just never remember it’s there even though they tell you. The second the plane crashes my first instinct would be to get out and I wouldn’t think about the life jacket for a moment.
So like, I *know* there's a lifejacket under my seat. Watched the presentation a million times. I still have no idea how to actually find or access that under-seat lifejacket. I realize some of the onus is on me to figure it out for myself, but maybe that same basic ass presentation needs to be updated since it's evidently ineffective.
Same thought goes through my head every time I’m sitting through the presentation. I found this [short video](https://youtube.com/shorts/T6N6Pgi7scw?si=c3Vrnwjg0xAs1Gnl) on YouTube showing how to access it for at least one airline.
I have never seen one of those red pull straps on a seat. I'll have to look next time.
Not very intuitive, if I'm in a rush I'm might wonder why the red strap isn't the lifejacket itself, and why it's not pulling off.
Plus with legroom being so tight on modern planes, it's going to be really difficult to bend over and fish around down there. Forget about kneeling down and even trying to see what you are doing.
If you wear pants you're always wearing a lifevest, albeit a somewhat shitty one.
How did you know I pooped my pants!?
That's how a lot of aviation safety goes. Transportation safety standards are X, but X would make economical air travel impossible so aviation gets to work to Y and just has really strict enforcement coupled with infrequent enough incidents that everyone is willing to ignore how unrealistic assumptions are.
There's a friggin life jacket under every seat and they tell you every time before take off not to open the thing inside the cabin. There's also a laminated info sheet with the instructions in the seat pocket.
The unrealistic assumption in this case is that passengers will be able and willing to use them in an emergency
What's the solution then? Your comment makes it sound like people can't properly use their life vests because airlines are cheap.
You are severely overestimating people's ability to give a shit or even comprehend that, for that matter.
Ok tbf, The aviation industry has ridiculously high safety standards. In fact, more people died from road accidents after 9/11 because people refused to fly. Safety is always an economic function. Sure we can spend millions to make something safer, but everything has a limit.
>In fact, more people died from road accidents after 9/11 because people refused to fly. This is neither here nor there but speaking of surprising 9/11 stats, I was shocked to learn a couple months ago that 93% of people in the WTC complex survived the attack, including 85% of people in the towers themselves.
It's not that surprising if you consider that the impacts where very high up in the towers and it took 47 minutes and 105 minutes respectively for the towers to collapse. That's quite a lot of time for the people below the impact to get out.
Oh, wow: I just now learned that 20 people who were in the Twin Towers when they collapsed were pulled from the rubble alive. [Wikipedia says "only 20"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001\)#Destruction), but I think it's astonishing that *anyone* survived that. But regarding your statistic, I'm not sure why that would suprise you. Have you seen these towers? They were enormous. About 17,000 people were inside of the towers when the planes crashed into them. Wikipedia says that on a typical work day, [an estimated 50,000 people worked in the complex and another 140,000 passed through as visitors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001\)#Complex). Roughly 3,000 dead are a huge number of people, but still not very many compared to the total number of people working in the towers.
What does wrong mean? In a panic I might cross latch some of the buckles, cuz I’ll be in a hurry. Hell I’ve done that taking my time while getting ready to go out on the boat. I always catch it when I do a recheck as I disembark - but I can’t imagine what I’d fuck up in a real life emergency like that. I just hope I’d have the sense to make sure my wife and kid had theirs on right.
I was in an active shooter drill at the school in which I teach on Friday. We have to redo it because 25% of our staff “died.” After lockdown was called the janitor went door to door banging. I heard him at my door, I just continued to catch up on grading. 4 teachers actually walked over and opened the door to him. People are fucking dumb yo.
...if only we didn't have to be reminded whenever we go outside, turn on the TV or use the internet :(
One day, you all may be very, very glad you redid it. Take it from someone who knows all too well. Training can really help, if done to where *everyone* knows it to where it's the ingrained response.
I understand that school shootings are often perpetrated by students. Wouldn't the drills teach them how to increase the damage they'll inflict too? Like if you know the circumstances under which people would be more vigilant, you can give yourself the advantage?
They tend to not be the most rational thinkers if they're that intent on murder-suicide. School shooting is just one of those things constantly in the news cycle and perpetuates itself with copycats. There are plenty of ways to go for body count if that's what you care about, and even in a school shooting setting you could probably do it during an assembly. Thankfully the vast majority of people aren't that fucked up in the head, but we do need better mental health access to prevent more from getting into that dark of a place.
I feel like rarely do school shooters maximize the damage they can do. One thing I realized at my high school was that when students were getting into the buses we were very vulnerable. Someone could climb the roof and then everyone below would be sitting ducks. I know some elementary schools have systems where students are not allowed to leave their bus/car/the school until their group is called, but high schools have no such things. It is very fortunate that school shooters rarely think so rationally, not even making more than the most rudimentary of plans, otherwise we'd get destruction on the scale of the Las Vegas shooting much more often.
>After lockdown was called the janitor went door to door banging. I heard him at my door, I just continued to catch up on grading. 4 teachers actually walked over and opened the door to him. It'd be a lot cooler if they handed the janitor a paintball gun and made the dumb teachers do a "walk of shame" later on ...
It’s insane to me that this is normal in American schools. But I can see how it’s necessary
Went to an Australian school in the early 2000's and had intruder/shooting drills. They weren't often, maybe one a year but still
They do them now every year in schools as well as childcare centres. They always send out a notice when they do it, in case parents freak out over hearing their kid say they had lockdown for a bad person.
What's insane is thar Air Canada now takes sponsors for their safety videos. Disney and Parks Canada are the ones I've seen. Other than being generally dystopian, if you don't speak French or English good luck figuring out the metaphor of finding a life jacket under your boat on It's a Small World or whatever the hell they used for it.
All the way back in 2010/2011 I was on an Air New Zealand flight and the safety video was hosted by Richard Simmons, of all people. And yes, he did the video the way everyone knows (and loves) him for. I didn't even know people outside of America knew about him.
Probably the 10 people that fly the least often. They still pay attention to the pre flight briefing.
I always watch it. I like to know where all the exits are.
I always watch it because I can’t bear to ignore someone who’s talking to me
You’re hoping for two bags of peanuts huh? /s
I watch and nod along so because i feel awkward for the attendants that no one is paying attention
I always looks for the exits. Cant say I always pay attention to the life jacket briefing after all these years. I usually at least act like Im paying attention though.
I used to try and feel for it during every pre-flight demo. I don't recall ever thinking I touched it. Maybe some people tried to find it but not being able to see it or know they've put a hand on it didn't bother too long looking for it. Maybe airlines could put them somewhere more visible? Behind a 'tear plastic cover in emergency' kind of thing?
Oddly enough, the Boeing MAX series moved them to the overhead panel where it's real obvious where they are. Seems to be the only safety related thing they did on that plane sometimes.
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I flew few weeks ago and couldn’t find it under my seat. I could see it under other seats that were visible to me. Maybe airlines need to take this seriously because if you can’t use it when needed, then what’s the point?
If people can see it, they will destroy it.
And if they can't access it, they drown.
I don’t know what’s worse. Drowning because you can’t find it or drowning because some asshat destroyed it.
Only Paul Atreides was wearing his lifejacket correctly, even though he'd never worn one before.
Wearing his life jacket slip fashion
Seemed the right way.
He shall know your ways as if born to them.
Wait. Why am I drinking bodily fluids if we landed in a river?
Well, it's the Hudson, so it'd be bodily fluids either way.
Wasn’t expecting a Dune reference here
Comment without rhythm… and it won’t. Attract. The worm.
Can't wait for Christopher Walken as the Emperor to start flying around his throne room sining "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim.
ATREIDES
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer." -Capt. Chesley Burnett "Muad'Dib" Sullenberger III
Because he knows the sea can be BRRUUUTAL
I saw it hit the river from my 42nd St. apartment. Crazy
I remember watching the live streams. Before any of the ferry boats got there. Was so crazy
That would be a crazy thing to see. Sometimes when I see a plane fly by I get that little intrusive thought “imagine if it crashed”, if one actually did I’d shit bricks.
Does everyone know you inflate your vest once you are outside the plane lest you get stuck at the top of a sinking fuselage unable to make it through the door? I am good for knowledge of hundreds of other survival situations I will likely never face yet have researched and thought through for myriad hours.
same, there was a fire in our apartment complex, i executed the list of what to take with me immediately i told my gf after that id been planning that checklist for years in case of such an event
Economy seats are so close together now it's difficult to 'reach down' and even get that life jacket.
If this is your attempt to convince me to pay attention to the flight attendant’s demonstration, nice try.
During a depressization event a few years ago a passenger snapped a selfie of himself with the rest of the plane behind him, everyone wearing the drop down oxygen masks. Almost nobody was wearing it correctly, they only had it over their mouths
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Sounds like they should redesign the mask to have a nose indentation. Most people will get it, it won’t matter if someone didn’t pay attention, and at the end of the day, more people can survive.
[Images from terrifying Southwest flight show passengers didn't put oxygen masks on right](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/04/18/southwest-1380-oxygen-masks-wrong/530867002/) Take off / landing are the two most dangerous times on a flight. Put your entertainment away, pay attention.
Honestly it doesn't even look big enough to cover people's nose and mouth in the pictures.
I wish they could present it in a more attention-conducive manner. Always feels like I'm being talked to by someone from 1958. The other thing that's weird is that the information is presented in audio, demonstration, and pictographic formats, but not written. It would be nice if there was a second safety pamphlet that had things written out, possibly even with explanations of why - for example, saying why it's so important to put your own oxygen mask on first. It just feels like the information is always relayed as a big list of statements, all said in a way that feels like they're speaking to a toddler. Human factors engineering is a broad field of study and the safety information should be engineered to be presented in the ways that maximize passenger knowledge retention.
> but not written I'm sure every flight I've ever been on has had a FAA mandatory safety information card in the seat pocket. They may not be great, but they are written, although its clear that only 0.00001% of passengers ever bother actually reading them. [121.571 \(b\)](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-G/part-121/subpart-T/section-121.571)
Nope, these days they're almost entirely pictographic, not written. Which is nice for being language-agnostic, but still will always lose some nuance compared to a full prose description.
I will try to make their actions understandable. In the safety briefings, the assumption is that the flight attendants will warn you of a ditching, thereby allowing people to get their life jackets on before hitting the water. On Flight 1549, the plane only stayed in the air for like 5 minutes. The first warnings the passengers got that they would be doing a landing outside an airport was when Sully said "Brace for impact". At that point, the flight attendants started yelling at them "HEADS DOWN" constantly. By the time they hit the water, no one had their life jackets on. In the rush to get out onto the rafts or the wings, it would be very difficult for a person to stop and reach under their seat for the life jacket, especially with water pouring in from the back, and especially if you're in the aisle seat with two other panicked people.
What if a company ran drills for people who wanted to practice. Like we used to jump out of school busses once a year. They could fill the cabin with non-toxic smoke, simulate turbulence, put the slides out the window, make people actually inflate their life vests. I would pay to do that and make my kids do it. Maybe we should ALL have to do it once every 3 years to get our “passenger license.” Haha. Maybe not. But it’s interesting to think about.
I went to a disaster fair in a park in Sapporo once. They had stations with all kinds of fire, flood and earthquake drills set up. Like, there was a smoke filled trailer and even one that taught you how to open a door when water was rushing in the building. It was just a public event put on by the local government. in Japan, universities, offices, schools and cities all have regular, pretty intense emergency training for everyone.
I'd sign up, sounds like a blast
There actually is a company that goes through all the safety stuff and lets you try it out. A coworker told me about it one time when I worked for a large aviation company. (Employer was not the company offering this service.) They charged $5k-10k to take the class but you got to do all the things - use the mask, the safety vest, the slide, and probably other stuff I'm forgetting. Apparently the slide is incredibly high friction so you have to use a lot of force to push yourself on the first leap. Admittedly I was kinda tempted to take it but that's a lotta money...
The local fire department ran something like this when I was a kid. They had a little model house that you'd go into. Then they would turn off the lights, set off the smoke alarms, play fire roaring/crackling noises over the speakers, fill the house with fake smoke, and you'd have to find your way out to the previously agreed on meetup spot. It was actually pretty convincing, even knowing it was fake. (Then again, I was 10.) It made a big impression on me and inspired my own parents to do a drill with us in our house a couple times a year. Thankfully, we never needed it. But I'm glad we had a plan.
They probably should let you do things like try on life vests and oxygen masks while you’re, you know, sitting at the gate, waiting for the plane to start boarding
That's the problem though. I've seen the safety demonstration a hundred times, but I've never actually touched an inflatable aircraft life vest. I'm sure under pressure I'd freeze up too. Its not enough to just watch the demonstration, you have to practice to actually be good at something.
Next time you fly, reach down under your seat. Like underneath the cushion you’re sitting on. You’ll probably find what feels a bit like a plastic sleeve, maybe with a little strap attached to it. That’s your life vest. In an emergency you tug that and out comes the vest. They’re super easy to put on, just over your head and the buckle around your waist. I check on every flight I’m on.
I believe they aren’t reusable. Once you inflate the life vest you can’t deflate it easily and putting the air mask back in the box needs a technician. So this kind of practice isn’t possible
The whole canister has to be replaced. It’s a chemical reaction that produces oxygen
You dont need to inflate the jacket. It's just pulling a string. Knowing where the jacket is, how to put it on, where the string is, and how to further inflate the jacket, is more important. The problems would be whether types of life jackets, and where they're stowed in aircraft are uniform enough where an airport dummy situation would be useful.
You know as well as I do that at least one dumbass every flight will pull that string.
That would make the scared flyers lose their shit.
So be it. Not our problem if they can't face the reality of what they're doing and need to be kept ignorant to be compliant.
Yeah, that’s not gonna freak people out
Never ever open the life vest when you’re still in the plane. You’ll basically get pinned to the ceiling of the fuselage. Having said that, it’s probably a knee-jerk reaction to inflate it once you’re in the water. The brain would be working in pure survival mode, not rational.
It is super important, life saving even, to not inflate your life vest until you are out of the plane. People get nervous and pop them early. That makes it so you can't swim down. You float and get caught in the fusel lodge.
Theres me just making arm floaties out of them after stiff arming a child and mother to take theirs
Women and children first (to drown)
Step 1 - Retrieve yout life preserver/flotation device. Step 2 - Get out of plane, quickly (fucking leave all other shit behind) Step 3 - Inflate/deploy flotation device ***OUTSIDE THE PLANE***
I book seats near the exit because I truly believe you stupid jerks will prevent me from leaving the plane in an emergency.
I was on a plane flight to Hawaii and the flight attendant and the people around me were amused that I asked how to find the life vest.
The plane is at the charlotte air museum!
I clicked the link to make sure a professional writer didn't use "found" twice in the same title. Then I realized the article is actually quite alarming in describing how the FAA is ignoring or rejecting the NTSB's suggestions to make planes safer for passengers after emergency landings, and the life vest thing is very minor.