The most irresponsible comment by a journalist dealing with BA038

[727 exec]

Excuse the delay in writing this, but have been away with no internet connection!!

I was listening to one of the London 'talk' stations and heard the presenter covering the BA038 incident comment that she makes a point of never listening to the safety briefings - indeed she seemed to think that this briefing causes a negative atmosphere.

Gadzooks I thought...she's got a zillion listeners (some of whom rang in to complain at this), but if more passengers thought that this intentional lack of attention was a good idea, then we'd never get the passengers off in 90 seconds...can you imagine how many injuries we could have been dealing with??

Air incidents make big news - do we really want a journalist 'dis-ing' the safety briefing????????

[TwoOneFour]

From what I've seen in most aircraft, you don't have to be an LBC listener to think you can carry on reading the paper during the safety brief. I find it's usually the know-it-alls who think their ClubCard and frequent-flyer miles will get them out the door when the balloon goes up.

[moggiee]

I think it´s fair to say that if you are about to fly your third sector in as many days as a passenger in a B737-400, you're probably as aware of the drills as you're ever going to be! Enough repetitions commit the briefing to memory (it's what we do as pilots with our emergency brief etc.).

I listen and look at the cabin crew out of respect for them and their job, but to be frank I don't need to. However, I do read the card and check out the location of the exits as I board. I also know how to work the seat belt buckle as it's identical to the ones on my 1969 MG!

[Intruder]

Quick, moggiee, answer NOW!

Which doors are available for a water evacuation?

[moggiee]

Quick, moggiee, answer NOW!

Which doors are available for a water evacuation?
Not having been a passenger in any type of aeroplane for 4 years, I could not tell you. Give me 30 seconds with the safety card and I could!

As I say, if it's your third trip in as many days, you should be able to remember (I know I would).

[k3lvc]

I'm in a similar situation to Moggiee so permit me to answer from my memory of my last flight.

In the event of landing on water please evacuate the plane via the overwing emergency exits. Should the front exits be above the waterline and if directed by crew then these can be used.

Given I normally sit close to the front I'm not overly bothered about the rear exits as if the worst comes to the worst many pax behind me will already have found their way out (or not as the case may be).

I too extend the courtesy to the crew of at least listening to their messages and feel it's the least that people can do.

[Spurin]

Front doors usually:)

[moggiee]

I should add that as a professional pilot (flight simulator instructor) I do have a head start compared to the average brain dead, gin soaked journo.

[Donkey497]

Water borne evacuation?

Just hope that whoever opens the doors has the good luck or cool headed judgement to pick only doors above the water line...........

[Intruder]

Give me 30 seconds with the safety card and I could!

As I say, if it's your third trip in as many days, you should be able to remember (I know I would).
Indeed, reading the safety card would be a good idea in any case. I wonder why they tell you to do that as part of the safety brief...

As for the "third trip" part, that's not the case at all. It would be the case ONLY if you had traveled ONLY on one airplane type/configuration. Put an A320 or ERJ into the mix, and the whole theory goes up in flames!

So, if you MUST read something during the brief, browse through the safety card one more time. I still do -- EVERY flight!

[boguing]

Intruder, quick now. What is the likelihood of moggiee being alive after your water landing?

I worked for an organisation that, unfortunately, showed that he wouldn't be. So he might as well nick the lifejacket when you do repatriate him with terra firma and use it when he goes sailing and it might be of some use.

[Dogma]

Richard Quest on CNN - his report was virtually total piffle, utter tosh.

He was spilling total stool from start to finish, flaps, engines, pilots, landing, all related comment were BS.

These Guys did a great job in not Stalling and maintaining the best profile in the face of GPWS, Stick Shaker, EICAS warnings, Screens flickering as Gen's drop off line. They did a fine job.

Having seen the grainy footage of the last minute of the flight, the tail must have struck the ground first. The FO was managing the aircraft on the edge of the stall, must be at least 25 Degrees nose up.

[pasoundman]

k3lvc
In the event of landing on water please evacuate the plane via the overwing emergency exits. Should the front exits be above the waterline and if directed by crew then these can be used.


When was the last landing on water (of a commercial passenger flight) where that could have been done ?

Graham

[Flib]

Richard Quest is annoying at the best of times.

Is the grainy footage referred to available online somewhere?

[christep]

When was the last landing on water (of a commercial passenger flight) where that could have been done ?There has never been a landing of a commercial jet with under wing engines on open water in a way where the safety briefing had any relevance whatsoever. The closest in the sense that anyone survived was the Ethiopian jet of which there are videos around. But that cartwheeled, broke up and sank pretty much instantly so the safety briefing was irrelevant (except the part about don't inflate your lifejacket inside the aircraft, which did for a few people who might otherwise have escaped apparently, so it's quite possible that life jackets killed more people than they saved in that case).

Any sensible cost benefit analysis would remove life jackets from commercial jets - the huge environmental cost of the extra fuel needed to carry millions of them around the sky each day is way out of proportion to an infinitessimally small theoretical benefit. They are there as a hangover from the flying boat days when they did have a justifiable purpose.

[Rush2112]

^^^

I am reminded of the Billy Connolly segment where the advice is to all throw your life jackets at once and shout 'go away, nasty mountain!'

In case you're wondering, I still haven't worked out how to use the quotes on this board.

I think christep has a valid point especially when flying from (say) Perth to Melbourne, Jakarta to Jogyakarta, Bangkok to Khon Kaen, all sectors I have done which don't involve much flying over watery bits!

[pasoundman]

christep
There has never been a landing of a commercial jet with under wing engines on open water in a way where the safety briefing had any relevance whatsoever.

Any sensible cost benefit analysis would remove life jackets from commercial jets - the huge environmental cost of the extra fuel needed to carry millions of them around the sky each day is way out of proportion to an infinitessimally small theoretical benefit.


As I suspected and I agree. Yet lightweight smoke hoods have been continually rejected. How daft is that ?

[HotDog]

I think all door exit (other than overwing) evacuation slides are slide rafts which would be deployed by the cabin crew who are trained in all aspects of slide deployment evaluation, use and detachment as neccesary. Other than the life vest demonstration and instruction for inflation after exiting, I have never heard any instruction as to door usage in case of ditching.

[PVGSLF]

From what I've seen in most aircraft, you don't have to be an LBC listener to think you can carry on reading the paper during the safety brief. I find it's usually the know-it-alls who think their ClubCard and frequent-flyer miles will get them out the door when the balloon goes up.

That's probably a little unfair. Gold Cards and loads of miles generally means you've been with the same airline on the same aircraft type many times. Being a frequent flyer, you probably take more than a passing interest in the industry, and are well aware of the risks. Just because you don't pay total attention to the safety brief, doesn't mean you're going to be a quivvering wreck with no clue of what to do in an emergency.

I for one note carefully my relative position to the exits when i get to my seat, and as other pax take their seats I assess which exit is going to be the easiest to head for if I have to.

I keep passport and wallet in my trouser pocket, and don't kick off my shoes until in cruise and the seatbelt sign is off.

Then I sit back and ignore the safety briefing which I am seeing for the third time this week, because let's face it - you can tell me a hundred times how to tie the lifejacket or don an oxygen mask, but until I have to do for real in the fear of death I'm really not going to know how to do it.

[Passagiata]

All well and good, seasoned travellers - but I suspect that idiot broadcaster's audience were not regular passengers.

It's a matter of optimisation: the more readiness/knowledge on the part of any given passenger, the smoother an evacuation will be.

Factors include the intrinsic stress of take-offs for most passengers: e.g. reading the safety card of itself has a de-stressing benefit. (sense of doing something active in a powerless situation)

And don't make the mistake of thinking that as a seasoned passenger you are necessarily going to perform better in an emergency. Passengers may believe they have taken in all the information many times - but, again, the stress component lessens their ability to take it in, and recent repetition becomes important. In a state of confusion and mayhem you will remember recent repetitions, and recently rehearsed scenarios.

I expect there is a relevant de-stressing component in the safety message for the flight crew as well - they don't know who among their passengers is a seasoned traveller ignoring the briefing because they are actually familiar with their location and the layout of that exact plane from the very last time they flew (in an emergency situation, any analysis will be an impossibilty other than in the coolest of customers). So if everyone is watching, learning or re-memorising, so much the less concern for the flight attendant that one or two might hold things up.

In days when I knew less about aircrash survival I'm guilty of ignoring the safety briefings and even failing to check the exit plan thoroughly. Not these days. These days, for example, I actually count AND discreetly pat the back of the seats to the exit the first time I head for the toilet, because that reinforces the message for a day when my brain will be relying on recent rehearsals. I don't go so far as to crawl on the floor, but I also rehearse a floor crawl past those same seats in my head.

Rehearsed information is of more use. This I knew from professional knowlege in other areas, but interestingly it was reinforced in a doco on air safety aired recently in Australia.

[rodthesod]

Which doors are available for a water evacuation?


If the fuselage is intact you wait to see which end everyone rushes to and then calmly walk to the other end of the aircraft in the almost certain knowledge that it will soon, if not already, be above the waterline.

r :\

[Algy]

He's well able to look after himself, but for the record Richard is a huge commercial aviation enthusiast with enormous respect for the pilot community. For a general news journalist he also has a pretty reasonable handle on the operational and technical basics of the whole game. And works damn hard.

I don't know exactly what his critics here are complaining about (as they don't say) but I saw his initial live piece from LHR on the night of the crash and it struck me as a remarkably sharp and sensible summary in the circumstances. (Indeed, nearly as sharp and sensible as my own contributions to the world that evening.)

Finally, I'm fairly frequently interviewed by CNN in my capacity as an expert/pundit/hack/commentator/mouthy Irish gob****e (take your pick - I'm easy). A few points about them: they don't pay; they give you a hard time about your expertise or otherwise when they first approach you; and, for a rolling news operation, they research the hell out of stories.

I'm just saying this for information - I've got no relationship with CNN, commercial or otherwise, apart from the aforementioned interviews. And I do those primarily to help publicise the organisation that I actually work for. (See my profile.)

[VS-LHRCSA]

I can understand where frequent flyers are coming from when they talk about the repetitiveness of the briefings, however people should realise that some features, such as slides, do differ between the airlines as well as the aircraft.

For example, I have operated A320 aircraft where, in a ditching, passengers are directed to the forward and rear doors (not overwing exits). The slide is used as a floatation aid and NOT a raft.

Other A320 aircraft I have operated required the use of the overwing exits only. What do you do when airlines have a mix in the fleet. This does happen.

You can't assume that every aircraft is the same, even within the airline.

[onboard]

Rehearsed information is of more use. This I knew from professional knowlege in other areas, but interestingly it was reinforced in a doco on air safety aired recently in Australia.

As a flight attendant I can tell you the following:
I am not looking forward to it, but if the need ever arises, I will evacuate as many passengers as I can, regardless of whether they have looked at my safety brief or not, or whether they said please and thank you. I will not however risk loosing my life. So you decide for yourselves, do you want to watch the safety brief, or not?
There's a little thing we flight attendants do before every takeoff and every landing. It's called a "thirty second review'. In my mind, I review all the things that are needed for an emergency, like where am I sitting, are there special handling procedures for the door I am expected to operate today, what are possible commands that can be expected from the cockpit, what reactions do they initiate, what actions in which sequence and so on.
As I said, we do this before every takeoff and every landing, in my case after eighteen years of flying.
Simply because, as outlined in the quote above, the information that you conciously pound into your head last will be there first.
But as I said, it´s up to you, every flight, every day.

[Basil]

I can't speak for those CLAIMING to be professional pilots however I am ex mil and capt with two majors.
I listen to the briefing, have a look at the card and mentally rehearse my actions in the event of a catastrophic situation just as the flight crew WILL be doing on the flight deck and the cabin crew as they strap in.
Only a poseur would wilfully behave otherwise - certainly on the first flight of the day.

I note that one of the B777 pax complained that he was not permitted to take his cabin baggage - aahh bless.

Never ascribe to malice that which may be more readily explained by stupidity.

[Torquelink]

There has never been a landing of a commercial jet with under wing engines on open water in a way where the safety briefing had any relevance whatsoever. The closest in the sense that anyone survived was the Ethiopian jet of which there are videos around. But that cartwheeled, broke up and sank pretty much instantly.

But, as I recall, the pilot had a gun held to his head by a hijacker which can't have helped his concentration!

[moggiee]

As for the "third trip" part, that's not the case at all. It would be the case ONLY if you had traveled ONLY on one airplane type/configuration. Put an A320 or ERJ into the mix, and the whole theory goes up in flames!
That's why (if you read my post properly) you'll see that I said

third sector in as many days as a passenger in a B737-400

I'm not aware of any successful ditchings but there have been a number of instances when a runway "excursion" has placed an aeroplane in the sea (Kai Tak, JFK etc.). In these cases the aeroplane rarely comes to rest in a level attitude and I suspect that most passengers would instinctively head uphill, which would probably take them to an exit which is above water.

Please note that I am not advocating ignoring the briefing, just saying that as an experienced professional aviator and passenger, reading the card is enough for me. Even though I've been lucky enough not to have been an airline passenger for a few years now, previously familiarity/experience means that I believe that I would know what to do.

After all, if Ryanair hosties can't open the overwing exits on a B737 (as has happened at least once) then it's down to us to look after ourselves!

[Romeo India Xray]

I regularly fly as SLF from my current base to visit relatives in good ol' Blighty. There is only one carrier on the route and they fly only one type. Regardless of this I ALWAYS pay attention to the cabin briefing out of respect for the cabin crew delivering it.

Yes, I know how the seatbelt works. Yes I know how to put an oxygen mask on (and even why you have to pull it and put your own on first). Yes I know how to put the life vest on.

However, I DO have my own exit route in mind and also a potential second and third route. Accident reports tell of the danger of fixation on a single exit.

[TightSlot]

We've had several threads in the past month debating the issue of the Safety Briefing: Surprisingly, to many of us, there is a hard-core of people for whom watching the Safety Briefing is regarded as unnecessary. For such people, there is nothing that can be said or explained that will alter their position.

I mention this because if you find yourself engaged in a spiral debate with them, you are almost inevitably headed for frustration. Depressing, but true. Take consolation in the knowledge that professional crew will always, as posted by Basil, watch the Safety Briefing - Really, there's nothing more to be said than that.

;)

[WHBM]

I thought this thread was about "the most irresponsible comment ....."

A London "talk" radio, probably the same one that started this thread off, had a report that the 777 had "plummeted towards the ground".

Now you may have noticed my comments here in the past about "plunged" and "plummeted", and I was on watch for them to appear. And indeed one of them did. Now seeing as the key thing the crew did was to extend the glide as far as possible this was obviously the exact opposite of what was being reported.

Maybe the media would like to introduce a new word, "anti-plummeted", to describe this situation. It is more accurate and still allows them to continue to use their treasured vocabulary.

[727 exec]

I have to say to his credit, that the Programme Director for the radio station contacted me earlier today to have a discussion (he's an aviation enthusiast) - so thank you to him.

[captplaystation]

To answer the original question, I think the Daily Mail gets the vote when quoting the Capt's neighbour (on two succesive days be-gods) that he is " handsome, like all Airline Pilots". . . .
My woman disagrees vehemently, she says they are not all finished off like me.

[nickmo]

The '..most irresponsible comment..'...?

Can I offer the delighhtful litle article from News of The World who think parading the night life of the crew is really to do with the actions taken at Heathrow that, how ever arrived at, did save lives....

"After licking the chocolate off and soaping him down they also played an airline game with him, putting liquorice up his........." and so on and so on...

Decorum prevents finishing the quote..but there were pictures of the event published on Sunday. Anyone else play this airline game then? I guess its not for the Economy passengers though.

Decisive, insghtful and pertinent reporting yet again from the NOTW...

[TightSlot]

Anyone else play this airline game then?

Yes, but us charter/loco folk prefer peanut butter

[epsum]

About succesful ditchings:
Pan American World Airways Boeing 377 Stratocruiser back in 1956.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/1956/561016-0.htm

US NAVY P3 in 2005 ( all 11 crew survived, although P3 is not commercial airliner)
http://www.vpnavy.org/vp47ditch.html

airALM incident in 1970. A JFK-SXM flight aborted landing three times, before having to ditch off the US Virgin Islands. 40 of the 63 passengers survived.

A Garuda 737-300 put down pretty safely on an river in Indonesia after a double flame-out in a rainstorm when the engines were running near idle. Only one stewardess died in the "ditching" (the water was about 2 metres deep).

National Airliners 727 in 1978
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19780508-1

TAAT 707 in 2000
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20000203-0

Although, offtopic, there are some evidence that are possible commence succesful ditching.

[nickmo]

Hi T - Ok, you know I'm going to ask so I'll get it over with.......



Crunchy or smooth then......?

and NO pics please to prove it....


And ref the safety briefing issues, I just think its a common courtesy to listen to advice someone is offering regarding emergency procedure - I'm sure the same people who ignore the inflight briefing are those that view office fire drills as an interruption to their day and are just an excuse for a smoke, and don't appreciate that it could save their lives...

[ChristiaanJ]

As to 'safety briefings' getting tedious, yes, sure.
So are cockpit checklists.
Neither of them are meant to be entertaining.
So yes, I use the 'trolley dolly ballet' up front to check the items they go through, rather than scoff at it and read my paper.

The only things I regret....
I wouldn't mind actiually getting my hands on a life vest and practise for a moment putting it on. Gestures practised are fundamentally different from gestures seen.
And in the same line... I wouldn't mind actually see a real oxygen mask deploy, and know how hard to pull to get it to work.

The latter even more than the former. Ditchings have gone out of fashion. Decompression 'events' have not. Staring stupidly at an oxygen mask I just have jerked off its connection is not the last thing I want to do in my life.

[WHBM]

Yet another successful ditching (Japan Air Lines DC8 near San Francisco). This was even more remarkable as the crew do not seem to have been aware that they were going to hit the water. But all escaped on the rafts.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19681122-0

[Bealzebub]

There has never been a landing of a commercial jet with under wing engines on open water in a way where the safety briefing had any relevance whatsoever. The closest in the sense that anyone survived was the Ethiopian jet of which there are videos around. But that cartwheeled, broke up and sank pretty much instantly so the safety briefing was irrelevant (except the part about don't inflate your lifejacket inside the aircraft, which did for a few people who might otherwise have escaped apparently, so it's quite possible that life jackets killed more people than they saved in that case).

Any sensible cost benefit analysis would remove life jackets from commercial jets - the huge environmental cost of the extra fuel needed to carry millions of them around the sky each day is way out of proportion to an infinitessimally small theoretical benefit. They are there as a hangover from the flying boat days when they did have a justifiable purpose


To add to the others there was a JAL DC8 that was crashed into Tokyo bay on the approach into Haneda in 1982 of the 174 on board, 150 survived.

The Ethiopean jet hit the water in a bank, presumably because the crew were being attacked by hijackers at the time. They might have had a more successful ditching if they had been allowed to ditch the aircraft in accordance with the recommended procedures.

Your statement is pure nonsense on so many levels.

[broadreach]

The JAL DC8 was an undershoot at Narita (don't recall anything like that at San Francisco). Data on other ditchings is, fortunately, sparse but no doubt at some time in the future the stats will be amplified. The Ethiopian 767 did so under the most trying circumstances for the flight crew, gun at head as mentioned above; had there been more of a chance to plan it might have been less violent.

Re Richard Quest, even if he were God's gift to the aviation industry that chalk-on-a-blackboard grating voice would turn me off.

As for briefings, I make a point of putting down the newspaper and showing that I'm listening. Because I'm tall I usually get a seat with legroom i.e. near an exit. Just by making eye contact with the guy/gal who's going through the safety speech I reckon there'll be a better chance that, come the time and if it's survivable, we'll know what to do.

[christep]

Your statement is pure nonsense on so many levels.Nonsense it is not. You clearly have no understanding of how cost-benefit analysis is undertaken day in, day out in so many other areas. OK, so perhaps two DC8s are examples of successful open water ditchings of underwing-engined (sorry, forgot that bit first time) civil jets.

But if the same cost-benefit analysis were applied to life jackets as is applied to pretty much any other area of transport safety (the UK government, for example, has a price of about GBP1M per fatality prevented as what they will pay for road improvements, or at least they did a few years ago when last I researched this in detail) then they would be gone. The same amount of money as is spent on carting all those life jackets around every day to save perhaps one life a year on average would be far, far better spent on a myriad of other things to much better effect (like finding a cure for AIDS or something). And that's regardless of the environmental impact of doing so. In many airlines in my part of the world the money could be far better spent on pilot training and evaluation - far, far more lives are lost in aircraft due to pilot error than are saved by life jackets.

[Bealzebub]

I am afraid the analysis doesn't necessarily make it a benefit. There are very few fires on aircraft as well, so why not remove the extinguishers they only provide 90 seconds or so of total extinguishing capacity in any event. Remove the liferafts the weight of one exceeds the weight of all the lifejackets, the Titanic paved the way for that cost benefit.

The problem with safety is that it will nearly always have a disproportionate cost, because it generates no return, until the fateful day when suddenly it does. Fortunetaly regulation sets the requirement. A few posts back you stated that :There has never been a landing of a commercial jet with under wing engines on open water in a way where the safety briefing had any relevance whatsoever. As has been shown here you are quite wrong.

Your cost benefit analysis argument is little more than a gamblers tip. One accident where (like white star line in 1912) you kill people because you took the viewpoint that aspects of safety are too expensive or unnecessary will likely destroy the operators business and have major cost implications for the industry. The old adage that, if you think safety is expensive just wait until you see what an accident costs ! is probably truer in aviation than in many other industries.

The money saved in lifejackets would not be spent on better training or evaluation, it would be used as a cost saving. That is why such analysis is undertaken. The cost of transporting millions of litre bottles of alcohol from one foreign duty free emporium to another airport has no cost benefit to the airline. Nor does it have a positive environmental impact. Yet it goes on every day all around the world.

Money spent by governments on road safety is not really comparable in the sense that 300 people killed on a road is a statistic, whereas 300 people killed in an aircraft accident is a newsworthy tragedy with a visual impact. The consequences of the former will have little or negligable effect on a government, whereas the latter will likely not only have enormous cost repercussions, but may also destroy the operating company.

Cost benefit analysis is therefore of little relevance in how it operates in so many other areas, because in civil aviation safety matters there are factors such as regulation, history and public confidence, that have a distorting influence.

[Kinetika]

Any sensible cost benefit analysis would remove life jackets from commercial jets - the huge environmental cost of the extra fuel needed to carry millions of them around the sky each day is way out of proportion to an infinitessimally small theoretical benefit. They are there as a hangover from the flying boat days when they did have a justifiable purpose


While I kind of agree with you (pre-flame note: I do NOT fully agree with the poster), the full and correct implementation of murphy's law would then guarantee that the next overwater flight (post removal of LJ's) would require a ditch. I would not want to be the guy that authorised the removal of the things.... :ouch:

Perhaps that would explain why, to date, they are still available under every seat. Alternately, Billy Conollys line about "archeologists thinking there was a river here", is appropriate...

Finally - Just how much of a "Flotation Aid" are the seat back cusions?


Regards

Paul

[Basil]

Cost/benefit? I'm sure the reason the pilots don't have bang-seats is just to concentrate our minds :}

ChristiaanJ,
Another useful thing would be a practice slide at the airport. Even those who didn't try it could see that it is less frightening than it looks and, as a bonus, it would keep the kids occupied :)

I'm always a bit concerned that, in an evacuation, people would try to slowly sit down on the slide instead of 'jump and sit'. You just keep moving and drop your bottom onto the nice soft slide and off you go. There is a decelleration patch at the bottom which will slow you down to a slow running dismount. :ok:

Any CC been involved in a real evac able to report on how pax used the slides?

[ChristiaanJ]

Not underwing engines, but nevertheless an example where life jackets came in 'useful'.

Early '70s, a BAC 1-11 suffered a compressor stall during take off from Corfu and overshot the end of the runway, into the water (the runway sticks out into a bay).
Water 'only' 6 to 10 feet deep, but the non-swimmers sure were grateful for those life jackets!
One fatality - an old lady who had a heart attack - but without life jackets there might well have been more.

[perkin]

Out of curiosity, do cabin crew get trained in evacuating a ditched airframe in real water, as per current offshore training for oil workers - they get ditched and turned upside down in a heli simulator...Just curious as to whether a real ditching would be a totally unknown situation, in terms of having water present, for the CC, as I know they do get trained in smoke filled environments and evacs from an aircraft standing on solid ground.

[iansmith]

I try to be within 7 rows of an exit and I do count the rows. I don't find the arm waving bit (exits here and here) very useful as the direction is too vague - the card and a quick look around are more useful.

I do watch the life-jacket bit as not all jackets have the same fastenings, although like others here I am not sure of the benefit compared to, say, a smoke hood.

And while we're on the subject of safety - rear facing seats please. The more recent business class seats include rear facing seats and it would be interesting to know how SLF in general feel about them. I believe that rear facing seats are intrinsically safer than forward facing ones and I assume that it is a belief that customers want to face forward that prevent these being a standard fit. When I travel by rail I always try to sit in a rear facing airline type seat - rear facing to stand a chance of recovering quicker (either minutes or days) from a crash and not a table seat as I don't want to be hit by the passenger opposite. Rail passengers seem to be quite happy with rear facing seats so how about it?

[ChristiaanJ]

iansmith,

Re rear facing seats...
I think most people like to be seated traveling forwards. Lets call it "seeing where you're going" ? Or whatever other instinct comes into play?

Pax: "so why is the seat the wrong way round?".
"Ah madam/sir, it's for your safety. You have a better chance of survival in a crash".

Oh, great. Remind the SLF of a potential crash everytime she/he sits down.... :ugh:

Think of buses/coaches. Pretty nasty accident statistics. But are any of the seats rear-facing?

In the French TGV, about half the seats DO face backwards. Interesting. Somehow, there it's accepted. But then, the TGV is seen as exceptionally safe (with reason).

An aircraft is still seen as "not safe" (whether that's justified is not the question here).
So an additional reminder of being prepared for a crash anytime is maybe not a good idea.

Not to mention that I have this nagging memory that rear-facing seats have their own problems, and if you go seriously through all the 'lies, damn lies, and statistics', you find there are very few crashes where rear-facing seats would have made a significant difference.

[Contacttower]

I think in crashes like runway overruns rear facing seats would make planes safer...in terms of worse accidents though the forces are too high for it really matter which way the seats are facing. The RAF VC10 fleet has rear facing seats.

[ChristiaanJ]

I think in crashes like runway overruns rear facing seats would make planes safer...I doubt that in the Conhongas crash it would have made ANY difference...

In terms of worse accidents though the forces are too high for it really matter which way the seats are facing.I agree.

The RAF VC10 fleet has rear facing seats.That was introduced because at the time it was an idea 'in fashion', and of course the RAF has no commercial considerations to take into account.

[Contacttower]

I made the point about runway overuns because I remember reading the report into the crash of the Air France A340 and noting this bit:


Extract from the report:
The two crew members who had suffered serious impact injuries were able to perform their emergency duties effectively. Passengers who incurred impact injuries were ambulatory during the evacuation. One of the cabin crew, seated in the same general area as the crew and passengers who incurred serious impact injuries, was not injured. This cabin crew's seat was aft-facing; the other seats were forward-facing.

So maybe there's something in it...

[ChristiaanJ]

So maybe there's something in it...I didn't say there wasn't...
And now that you mention it, there would be a very good case for all CC seats facing to the rear. Not sure if that's the case these days?

Did you ever read Nevil Shute's "No Highway"?

[WHBM]

Rear-facing seats.

We seem to have got onto this now.

There's a lot of biased advice around to show that forward or rear facing seats are safer, or not, generally put about by the protagonists of one approach or the other.

The fact is that passengers, under normal circumstances, seem to much prefer forward facing seats in any form of transport, it is the natural thing to do.

RAF rear-facing seats date back to the days of poorer seat attachments and seat belts which could fail, things have moved on here.

The key issue in a high-speed deceleration for injury is not so much pax being thrown against seat in front as other, unsecured items being thrown against pax. And conventional seating does offer protection against this where rear-facing seats do not. Catering equipment, hand baggage, etc will go flying during an impact.

One recent issue with forward-facing seats that has passed the CAA by (as so much seems to do nowadays, apart from my taxes and fees to pay for their lifestyle) is the installation of in-flight entertainment boxes beneath seats, right where pax legs/feet are and will be bounced around during any collision. I cannot believe how aluminium boxes with sharp edges and ridiculously sharp corners have been allowed to be fixed right alongside where people's lower limbs are. In a car design this would make it illegal in a second.

[Contacttower]

Did you ever read Nevil Shute's "No Highway"?


No, although I am vaguely aware of the story line...I might get round to reading sometime because it sounds quite interesting.


One recent issue with forward-facing seats that has passed the CAA by (as so much seems to do nowadays, apart from my taxes and fees to pay for their lifestyle) is the installation of in-flight entertainment boxes beneath seats, right where pax legs/feet are and will be bounced around during any collision. I cannot believe how aluminium boxes with sharp edges and ridiculously sharp corners have been allowed to be fixed right alongside where people's lower limbs are. In a car design this would make it illegal in a second.


Indeed, rather worrying. One of survivors of the 1997 Korean Air crash (who was also a helicopter pilot) reckoned that the bad seat design broke his leg...meaning of course he struggled to exit the burning plane. Such an easy thing to fix I suspect but does that much thought go into seat design? I don't know. I know a lot of thought went into the seat design of our Volvo (from a safety point of view)...but for a plane perhaps people don't think these things matter much. I mean fair enough, a lot of crashes involve just such high forces that none of this really matters...but in terms of those more 'controlled' crashes safety could really be improved I think.

[cats_five]

Having seen the grainy footage of the last minute of the flight, the tail must have struck the ground first.


That's not what the marks on the ground seem to show - there are some decent pictures of them available on the Internet. Initial touchdown appears to be on the main gear, it bounced, the gear collapsed / broke away and it slide on the engines - the later set of marks are more widely spaced.