Swimming

[mutt]

I've just come across this recruitment advertisment, can anyone explain why there is a requirement to SWIM? . .. .Weight in Proportion to Height * Minimum height of 157.5 cm or 5' 2" * Live in the Dublin Aera * An additional European Language Preferred * A confident Swimmer . .. .Cheers.. .. .Mutt.

[flapsforty]

Ditching mutt <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[snowbound]

Somebody's got to retrieve the bar from the bottom of the ocean.. .. .Isn't it obvious?

[flapsforty]

snowbound your signature had me ROTFLMAO.. .Absolutely brilliant mate! <img src="http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/thumbs.gif" alt="" />

[Xenia]

Does it include freight-dogs 2??? <img src="http://www.smilies.nl/love/1luvu.gif" alt="" />. . . . <small>[ 10 March 2002, 22:47: Message edited by: Xenia ]</small>

[CR2]

awwww Xen...

[flapsforty]

<img src="http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/boohoo.gif" alt="" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[jayne]

Um. In case you crash into water you need to be able to swim!!!!

[christep]

[aka HKGpax]

Erm, unless I am mistaken, in the whole history of commercial jet aviation there has only been one successful attempt to ditch a big jet in the sea (and quite a lot of failed - as in almost no survivors - ones). Since everyone has lifejackets anyway I can't see that swimming needs to be very high on the requirements list.

And by the way, I'm surprised the airlines don't complain mightily about carrying all the lifejackets and stuff which must cost a fortune in fuel and have saved very very few lives. The cost benefit analysis must put that at many millions of dollars per life, which could surely be much better spent on, for example, ground control radar at airports which don't have them.

[Xenia]

Uhmmm....
I can clearly see that christep has not knowledge in safety at all
:eek:
Just to give you an idea, swimming in my coutry is a mandatory requirement for Cabin Crew, you actually have to pass a swimming test showing abilities is different styles....
Ok fellow ppruners, who wants to start giving a lecture to christep about the rest???? ...

:rolleyes:

[Iguanahead]

Oh Christep,

Where do we begin with you? Do you live under a mushroom or are you just having a go to see who bites?

Well it worked - I'm biting.

Have you no idea about aviation and the mishaps that occur?
Do you understand the words liability and morale responsibility?
Have you any idea the role that cabin crew provides?
Or are you just sitting back enjoying the bloody mary's and watching the feature film? :rolleyes:

There may not have been many successfull full ditchings in to the sea but should we get rid of the lifejackets and life rafts on that issue alone?

How about when the aircraft takes a nose dive off the end of the runway, and that runway leads straight in to water? e.g. SYD, old HKG etc

There have been incidents just like this and successful evacuations were carried out using all water emergency eqipment in the aircraft sections that required their use.

You CAN have an aircraft crash half on land, half on water. And what happens to the poor souls who can't swim? Or do we only allow pax that can swim competently to fly? There are many nations where swimming is not a strentgh, should we just ban them from hopping on a 747? Or do we just watch them drown?

Perhaps your theory would best suit the bean counters in this world but for world wide aviation safety it would be a tragedy.

I think Christep you need to do a bit of research in to this before you pass an obviously ill informed, uneducated view that I think is not only irresponsible but offensive! :mad:

Perhaps we could use you as a flotation device next time we ditch.:p

[christep]

With respect Xenia & Iguanahead, I have a pretty good understanding of risk analysis and statistics, and I have spent quite some time reading up on this topic. I also have spent quite a lot of time reviewing NTSB & CAA accident reports, and databases such as that maintained over at http://www.airdisaster.com

My apologies for any offence caused, which was certainly unintentional. However, most of the response in this forum seems to be driven by emotion rather than logic.

It is clear, for example, that more lives would be saved by fitting aircraft with smoke hoods than with lifejackets (clearly most would be saved by fitting both). However. the airlines have repeatedly refused to fit them on the grounds of cost.

It is also clear that significant numbers of lives would be saved by having all the seats backwards-facing. This is rejected on grounds of cost and customer acceptability (though personally I am perfectly happy in the BA J-class).

In any environment you have to decide how much you are prepared to spend to save a life... this calculation is done for road safety, building fire regulations, etc. etc. Broadly, once the "price" is set in any particular environment then safety features which cost less than that amount per life saved are implemented and those which cost more are not.

In airlines it seems to me that in fact the lifejackets are a bit of an anachronism. They exist primarily for historical reasons (flying boats etc) because if today you built the regulations from scratch you would start (I think - I will need more time to get the detailed statistics) with backwards seating (which has more or less zero net cost if you are starting from scratch), then smoke-hoods, then, maybe, lifejackets (obviously there could be various other things in the list too).

As for the role of the cabin crew, I think I have a reasonable idea - I have spent a good proportion of the last 3 years in their company (my apologies if you're one of the CX crew that I have bored to death in the middle of the night on the LHR, SFO, LAX or CDG runs).

If the airlines' over-riding consideration in selecting cabin crew was to maximise the number of survivors in a crash-landing then the criteria for selection would be quite different, and more like those for firefighters (ability to carry an unconcious 200-pound body up the aisle and out of the exit whilst wearing a smoke-hood for example). In real life, it is a balance between providing the best service in the 99.99whatever% of cases where there are no problems and being most effective in a crash. The airlines know that very, very few passengers have "effectiveness of the cabin crew in a crash" at the top of their list of priorities when choosing an airline, and they choose their cabin crew accordingly.

Moreover, survivability of crashes doesn't seem to vary much by airline, but the rate of crashes does (Korean and China Airlines, for example, are above my acceptable threshold level). Having said that it is clear that there is much more chance of a, say, BA cabin crew being able to drag my unconcious 6'3", 250-pound body down the aisle than there is of a CX stewardess. There are reports on the SQ006 at Taipei which give mixed reviews at best to the effectiveness of the cabin-crew there, and I understand that at least one change was made in SQ's uniform/procedures to make the footwear more practical.

So, in summary, all I am saying that all these safety issues are a trade-off and that in an ideal world I would make the trade-offs slightly differently. No disrepect intended to any cabin crew, who generally do a pretty good job.

[skypryncess]

Just for the record, Airlines don't "decide" to waste their money on lifejackets, they are carried due to CASA regulation, as are rafts. When Aviation Safety Authorities dictate that it is a safety requirement you will get your smoke hoods to. (Although wouldn't it be difficult to evacuate a blazing inferno in minimal time with a smoke hood around your head??? maybe it's just me.....)

[christep]

Oh dear, this is pedants' corner today isn't it? Of course I realise that the minimum safety equipment requirements are set by the national regulators not by the airlines. However, there is absolutely nothing to stop airlines equipping their planes with smoke hoods as well if they wish to do so.

After the loss of life on a Britsh Airtours flight at Manchester a few years ago (see http://www.airdisaster.com/special/special-bakt28m.shtml and http://www.aaib.dtlr.gov.uk/formal/gbgjl/gbgjl.htm ) where over 50 people died from smoke inhalation the Air Accident Investigation Board recommended that:

"4.24 The Civil Aviation Authority should urgently give consideration to the formulation of a requirement for the provision of smokehoods/masks to afford passengers an effective level of protection during fires which produce a toxic environment within the aircraft cabin."

There was substantial lobbying from the airlines that this would simply cost too much money, and no such regulations were forthcoming.

[Xenia]

Well....
Do you believe you have the right to come into our forum and call us "pedant" :eek:
We are all professionals in the industry, sorry you are NOT...
I am in my office now (I am involved with safety training) therefore no time to reply to you at the minute... but will get back to you later!!!!

[flapsforty]

HKGPax, legislation is slow.
The airline business is hidebound and loath to spend money on anything that doesn't immediately improve the bottom line.

Passengers are fickle and many do not give a flying f*ck about the safety features provided by the airline they choose. Again, it's the price that counts; in this case the cheapest fare.

So while your recommendations certainly have merit; I doubt if I ever will see PBE's for our pax during my working life.
I used to carry with me a portable PBE on my travels for use in hotel fires and the like.
Reading this thread reminds me that I should get a new one. The previous one was bought via the company, but they have stopped providing that service.
The only links I could find on the web were these 2.
1 (http://www.energyequipment.co.nz/) & 2 (http://www.smokehoods.com/SCU_main.htm)

Neither of them in Europe, which makes shipping and import taxes rather high.
Anyone can provide me with the name of a European manufacturer, I'd be grateful.

PS: Oh and Chris, regarding your remark about "most of the response in this forum seems to be driven by emotion rather than logic". I would't say most, but some are.
That is in fact one of the main differences between your stereotype pilot and your stereotype FA. :D
Still and all, it isn't exactly as if emotion, irrationaility and juvenile response were absent in the other forums, is it now? ;) :p

[christep]

Xenia,

This all seems to be getting a bit over-heated! I have been trying hard to formulate what I intended to be a rational discussion of the value and pros and cons of different safety equipment / procedures from the perspective of a very frequent passenger. In the last couple of years I have spent as much of my life in planes as many cabin crew so I think that my safety there is something on which I have the right to an opinion.

Unfortunately people seem to be taking my comments as an attack on cabin crew, which couldn't be further from the truth! My comment about pedantry was specifically in reply to Skypryncess who obviously felt the need for a clearer distinction between what is governed by regulation, and what is at the discretion of the airline.

I would be very interested to hear if cabin crew (particularly those with some expertise in this area such as yourself) have a further info or experience on the tradeoffs between cost and safety, and I had assumed (I hope correctly) that cabin crew might be interested in hearing from some SLF on this topic. My apologies if this is not the case - let me know, and I won't post in this forum again.

[christep]

Flaps,

Thanks for your comments. So to come back to the original question, why do the airlines require cabin crew to swim? Is it a regulatory requirement? If not why do the airlines restrict the availability of crew in this way since, as you say, the passengers couldn't care less (personally my mind is more exercised by the elaborate training that the CX girls have to go through to manage the wrap skirts they have which were obviously designed by a man - probably one sitting in the exit row opposite the crew seats ;) )

By the way, PBE (of a very basic type) is required in hotels in most Asian countries - why not see if one of your LH colleagues could get their hands on a few when they are next over here? They are generally in the wardrobe :)

By the way, I'm not "Chris" - my "handle" was "HKGpax" but we've lost them for the time being and "christep" is my login (related to my real name, but not in the way you guessed).

[Sick Squid]

Once again the dangerous myth that every ditching will be unsurvivable is trotted out. This disconcerts me somewhat; yes, it will be much harder to pull off a reasonable impact on the sea given all the variables, but we'll all damn well give it our best shot. The last thing I want is Cabin Crew behind me who are resigned to dying because of dis-information, and the last thing any sensible passenger would want is someone who is not ready to get their (the pax, that is) rear end out of the seat and motivated towards a wet exit in double-quick time.

Anyway, for starters here's a quote from an NTSB study on my hard-drive, specifically NTSB/SS-00/01, SAFETY STUDY Emergency Evacuation of Commercial Airplanes;

In 1985, the Safety Board released two safety studies that addressed evacuation
issues. The first study examined air carrier overwater emergency equipment and
procedures. The Safety Board studied 16 survivable water contact accidents that occurred between 1959 and 1984; most of these water accidents were inadvertent, occurred without
warning, involved substantial airplane damage, rapid flooding of the cabin, and a high
chance of injury. As a result of the study, improvements were made in life preserver
design, packaging, accessibility, and ease of donning; crew postcrash survival training;
and water rescue plans for airports near water.

The 1985 study referred to is NTSB Air Carrier Overwater Emergency Equipment and Procedures, Safety Study NTSB/SS-85/02 (Washington, DC: NTSB, 1985)

You can preach doom as much as you like, but ditchings are, and have been survivable. It's not a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, is definitely not risk-free and I can think of several places I'd rather put an airliner down than the ocean or a lake but I'd do it if there was nowhere better to go, and I'd expect us all to swim away from it. You can expect to die if you so wish; that is not my job.

Interestingly, there was an article in the BALPA log about a year ago on this very issue; mentioned the fact that over rough but generally flat terrain, such as the wastes of Northern Canada, it might be better to choose a shallow lake close to shore to alight upon rather than the land itself due to the seemingly flat but actually very rough nature of the terrain. Food for thought...

[skypryncess]

This post relates to the back seat drivers out there. I needed no clarification re: you comment chris, though perhaps you do and therefore should go back an read your own comment. 1 If it were deemed that smokehoods were a vital part of our safety equipment we would have them. Closed topic, safety is not left to the airlines alone rather the aviation safety authority in which a given airline resides. 2 A PBE whilst being useful for short times when fighting fires is also dangerous when used by inexperience people. Incorrect fitting = oxygen leak = fuel = passengers faces exploding. 3 those annying bits of cloth hanging from your headrest are not there just to irritate you. They are designed for the specific purpose of being breathed through to prevent smoke inhilation. Those are my thoughts, I may be an emotional flight attendant but I have never stooped to visiting other forums to make personal attacks on thier occupants. Oh and yes, I swim very well and may even save someones life one day. Yes we do have life jackets, will we always have time to put them on? And as far as misspent millions, as far as I and many other Safety Professionals are concerned, if a lifejacket works once it is totally worth the expense.

[christep]

Sick Squid,

I didn't say that every ditching would be unsurvivable. My point (which I must be making very badly because no-one seems to understand it) is that in terms of dollars per life saved the evidence I have seen has suggested that the money would be better spent on smoke-hoods rather than lifejackets. Clearly if sufficient money were available it would be best to have both. (And if passengers would accept it, backwards facing seats as well.)

Skypryncess,

As the link I gave previously showed, the Air Accident Investigation Board in the UK has recommended that smoke-hoods be fitted to all UK aircraft. Commercial considerations, in the form of pressure from the airlines on the Civil Aviation Authority which makes the regulations in the UK, meant that it did not happen. However much you may wish it not to be so, money is the determining factor here - smokehoods would have saved dozens if not hundreds of lives over the last 20 years.

Moreover, there are different types of equipment. As I understand it the recommendation in the UK was for smoke-hoods which would enable passengers to get out of the plane quickly without inhaling a load of smoke and toxic fumes. These could take the form of filters which would not have an oxygen source. I believe the PBE for cabin crew have oxygen on the basis that you will need to be in the smoke longer than most passengers.

The function of the headrest clothes is completely news to me - thanks for that - do any airlines actually bother to tell the passengers about this or is it supposed to be a secret?

I'm sorry that you see this as somehow a personal attack - it isn't meant that way. It's a pity also that you seem to regard passengers as "dead wood" in the event of an emergency. Many of the reports I have read on accidents suggest that "clued up" passengers can be a significant help in getting the panickers out of the cabin as quickly as possible.

[Xenia]

Try this....
www.flightsafety.org
Register, then look into publication jan_feb98 (about smokehoods)....
Also many more interesting stuff in this website (such as surviving a ditching and 1000 more interesting publications)... it's worth it ;)
So... u have flown as much as a Cabin Crew?? :eek:
Don't get me wrong, but how many SEP, First Aid and RT trainings have you done??
No, not the matter of being "sentimental" here just a matter of pax (with the right of giving an opinion) trying to get to know as much (or more) as we do ... :rolleyes:
Just a matter of respecting our professionalism :D

[Iguanahead]

Christep I don't think anyone in this industry would consider the pax "dead wood".

And their help in emergency situations as ABP's is appreciated in certain circumstances.

However, there is also the threat of a person not being properly trained misjudging the situation and causing an even greater problem.

No one is saying that the pax wouldn't be able to find their way out, or haul open an exit, or swim to safety them selves.
But unless they have had full competency training on that particular aircraft how could they possibly understand all the variables of an incident and the best way to approach an evacuation.

Speaking from experience Christep I have been involved in an emergency situation and I can tell you the hardest thing about it was stopping the pax from trying to take over the situation and opening exits that the crew deemed unsafe. ie twisted metal puncturing escape slides. It is not fun trying to stop 6" business men who are keen to get out your designated exit.

Information can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands, thats why we leave things we don't kow enough about to the professionals. I would no sooner attempt to be a police officer for a day than pretend I could do whatever it is that you do aside from travelling as a pax.

I , like yourself, am not meaning to offend you but you should understand that many crew are sick and tired of not only having to justify their job roles, but also having to explain again and again our prime responsibilty as safety professionals.

We are trained, and trained well, to follow the procedures at all times. We do not defer from these procedures unless the company sees fit to initiate this. You should trust the fact these people are chosen for their abilities to get your arse off that aircraft not just fluff your pillow and serve you cocktails!

You are right about one thing. And that is that many decisions in this industry are based on the money factor. The companies that you chose to fly with are running a business and of course will attempt to make the highest margin of profit possible. But if you think it is at the expense of your safety then it is your choice at the end of the day whether to fly with them or not.

And as for your original questions regarding smokehoods and rear facing seats, well in time you may have them but not until the studies are done and the bean crunchers have counted. Personally I would need a lot of convincing that they would not be detrimental to an evacuation in terms of time taken to fit, or risk of hazard and impediment to the evacuation itself.

Lastly ( now I can get off my soapbox ) please don't mistake our pride and love for the job as being overly emotional. Don't take lightly that we do indeed put our lives at risk on a daily basis for our jobs. Everyday we take on this responsibility willingly.

Perhaps it is not what you are saying but the way you are saying it that is causing you to be misunderstood.:confused:

[flyblue]

christep, to obtain my F/A licence I had to pass various exams (here in Europe some countries have a Civil Aviation exam for F/As, like France and Italy to name two, and btw swimming skills are a requirement). One of those included extracting an unconscious BIG pax from his seat and dragging him in the aisle. We are taught techniques for doing that and exercise regularly (even too much if you want my advice:D ).
Regarding the swimming skills, I believe it is superficial to say it is no use. There have been accidents, like the Minerva one in Genoa, where one pax with swimming skills saved the lives of the other pax by swimming to the emergency exits and opening them. In this case it couldn't be the F/A who was dead. But next time the F/A could be the only one to be able to swim, to know where to go and what to do.

[Hugh De Payen]

Christep ,

Keep digging! You are doing a most sterling job of impressing everyone with your aviation safety acumen!!

Prepare for the wrath of Xenia you fool.

[Xenia]

Do you mean I have a bit of a bad reputation?? http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/FIREdevil.gif
Hey... and I am suppose to be the good cop in here :D

[mainfrog2]

Quite an interesting thread this.

Airlines ask for cabin crew to be confident swimmers, it's not cross channel stuff because if you ditch in the sea it's better if you don't swim. But if your confident in the water you can concentrate on other things besides just trying to stay afloat. It's not very nice in the water even if you have a life jacket on.

Years ago I did some sea survival training relating to my work in the yachting industry. This time of year in the Northern hemisphere the sea is at it's coldest. Unless you are kitted out in a full fighter pilot style immmersion suit your not even going to SURVIVE in the water more than 10 minutes and if you start swimming you live even less time.

Most ditchings are probably going to happen just after take off or just before landing so hopefully your in shallow water and rescue is not too far away.

Rule must be only ditch in the Maldives.

On the point of rear facing seats I seem to remember a while back being told this was not possible because if an overhead locker burst open on impact and the contents fell out the injuries to the passengers would be facial rather than the back of the head which can to an extent withstand greater impact.

[Xenia]

Here goes some more correct information:
Symptoms of extended exposure to water at different temperatures

Loss of use of hands and forearms:
3° C 15 minutes
9° C 20 minutes
21°C 3 hours


Loss of mental activity
3° C 45 minutes
9° C 1 hour
21° C 4 hours 30 minutes


Hypothermia and death
3° C 1 hour 5 minutes
9° C 1 hour 30 minutes
21° C 6 hours

Interesting, isn'it? therefore if it can help to answer to somebody's question, we are provided (when required so by law)with life/slide rafts to help survivors while waiting to be rescued.... knowing how to swimm could help, such as a little silly example, to rescue someone from the water to life/slide raft.... Probably you have realized by the chart given above there is not really a lot of time to waste after a ditching situation if your pax are having a bath.....
Another interesting finding from an FAA ditching survivors research in 1998.....

72% of pax needed specific or direct assistance in the use of the life vest. This became a critical problem because 30% of the pax could NOT swim.
42% of the pax later stated that they had not seen the life vest demo and 59% that they had not read the briefing card....
:rolleyes:

So, hopefully we all see why it is important to make every minute count in case of a ditching.... (both premeditated or unpremeditated)

[mainfrog2]

Interesting stuff there xenia,

The onset of death in very cold water is very worrying isn't it, wondering how long rescue will take.

This is an interesting site I found. It relates more to yachts and ships sinking mid ocean (ie possibly weeks in a raft at sea) but some points are interesting nevertheless.

http://www.ussartf.org/Survival%20at%20Sea.htm

[stewardess007]

christep, you have made it clear that there are many things that you don't know. While your knowledge of a few hollow statistics may impress your drinking buddies, clearly you are out of your depth. As for headrest clothes or smokehoods etc "dead wood" such as yourself will be instructed how and when to use it.

[christep]

I find it quite sad that (with notable exceptions - thanks for useful data Xenia et al.) so many people here feel the need to get abusive and insulting in response to what seem to me to be reasonable questions.

I don't claim to know all the answers, and I had hoped that by entering into a dialogue with the professionals here I would be able to learn more about this area. It is sad that so many of you seem to think that the people who pay your wages are somehow not entitled to enquire about things affecting their safety.

Personally, if anyone happens to want to know more about my profession (which happens to be in telecoms) I am happy to try to explain as best I can. I am sure, for example, that if my answer to

"Why is it that making phone calls from Hong Kong to London is cheaper than from Birmingham?" was

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it - it's far too complicated and you couldn't possibly understand it"

then you would quite rightly get upset.

Stewardess007: I am sure there are many things that you don't know either, but my response to this is to try to learn, not to abuse people for doing so.

Anyway, in a final attempt to return to the topic...

Sick Squid: unfortunately the NTSB study you mentioned doesn't seem to be available from their website (although newer ones covering ground evacuation are). Does anyone know any online sources of data on ditching of commercial jets?

On the question of the head cloths as smoke filters, doesn't anyone else think it is strange that passengers are not informed of this possible use - maybe not in the demo/briefing, but at least on the safety card?

[Xenia]

Christep,
There are "few" things pax are briefed on only when circumstances arise. Otherwise:
a) Safety Demo will last forever (honestly, if we have to instruct pax on all we know and all they'll need to do in case of this or that or the other... Just consider an initial course last in average 5 weeks!) http://www.smilies.nl/nut.gif
b) Briefing card will be an encyclopedia http://www.smilies.nl/sad/eekyellow.gif
c) Average pax reaction http://www.smilies.nl/smhair.gif ... most of them hardly listen or care about basic safety briefing and demo anyway! http://www.smilies.nl/sad/nixweiss.gif


Now, don't get me wrong, but I believe that you approched us in the wrong way, and with the wrong attitude.
As I see things you claimed to know as much as one of us do as "you flown as much hours as us" ....

Pax at the end of the day pay my wages, fair enough. I will treat them with respect, but I expect to be treated with respect as well.
They pay my wages, and I am there to look after their safety (first at all). Both with the knowledge I've gain over all those years and by training new cabin crew to be confident in SEPs.

Deep down I am a very good person, althought well known for having "a bit" of a strong personality http://www.smilies.nl/rough/zzwhip.gif

If you have any questions regarding Flight Safety I am sure all my wonderful PPrUNe team and myself will be more than pleased to give you an explanation.

Just remember to give us the credit we all deserve, and to approch us in a different way....

And as someone very wise said.....

here to save ur @ss, not to kiss it http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/blah.gif

[christep]

Xenia,

Thanks for the response, and again I apologise if my approach caused offence.

However, in fact you can go back and see that what I said was: "In the last couple of years I have spent as much of my life in planes as many cabin crew so I think that my safety there is something on which I have the right to an opinion. "

That is somewhat different from claiming to know as much as you do, which is not something I have said. And just to put some figures on it, for example, in calendar year 2000 I flew 182 sectors on 16 different airlines.

So anyway, can we close the question of my attitude, and return the the topic, on which I very respectfully ask the assembled experts...

1) Does anyone have any online sources for data on ditching of commercial jets?

2) Given mainfrog2's comments about locker burst, does anyone know what special measures, if any, BA had to take for their new business class where 50% of the seats face backwards?

3) (this is at least partly tongue-in-cheek) can anyone confirm that the main benefit of the brace position is that it gets the heads below the level of the top of the seats and therefore keeps the teeth close to the rest of the remains to facilitate identifaction, rather than having mass decapitation and more of a jigsaw puzzle? :)

[Tuba Mirum]

Like christep, I have been disappointed by some of the responses to his query. As intelligent (?) pax, we have to be aware that cabin staff:
- are highly trained (and probably underpaid ;-));
- take their safety responsibilities seriously; and
- get asked some damn silly questions:
but I'm not sure that excuses the tone of some of the responses that have been given here.

I feel I can understand why some issues aren't dealt with, or are dealt with in a vaguely comforting way, in the safety briefing: though I do treasure the videos that show pax calmly helping each other put on oxy masks (and "breathing normally"), and particularly the wonderful BA lady who stands at the top of the slide blowing her whistle!

I do feel, however, that more information could be provided on (a) the brace position, and (b) smoke protection. As regards (a), I feel this might just help discourage the morons who feel entitled to recline their seats before takeoff, thus depriving the pax behind of the opportunity to adopt the brace position. As regards (b), like christep I had never realised the designed role of the seat clothing. I do feel that this, and any other useful information, should be made available to pax in the safety card. Who knows, if airlines start addressing the real issues in the safety card, they could find pax taking more notice. Think, for instance, of the greatly heightened pax awareness surrounding hijack issues in the wake of Sept 11th last.

One last thing: I hope it never comes to be considered "out of order" for denizens of one forum to raise - politely - issues in other forums, if the subject matter seems to demand it.

One really last thing: if it's true about the teeth, christep, you're going to have a hard job keeping your tongue in your cheek :eek: