Cabin Crew to search life-jackets prior to every departure
 

As per one of our latest Flight Crew Notices:Now, other than the fact that some pax take it upon themselves to filch the occasional life-jacket, could somebody please explain to me the rationale behind this additional new search ?

After all, passengers joining an aircraft have been through a supposedly rigorous system of security checks, right ?!

Also, what with Disclosure Scotland, et al ;) , all the staff who work airside, e.g. engineers, aircraft cleaners, caterers, etc, are supposedly ‘security vetted’ and, similar to the passengers, these staff also have to pass through a supposedly rigorous system of ‘security’, right ?!

So, reading between the lines, are we to understand that there are holes in the security ‘ring-of-steel’ – or how else might things be carried aboard to be stashed within an under-your-seat life-jacket pocket ?

Yep, God forbid that somebody might secret a pair of tweezers or maybe some of those lethal finger-nail clippers inside said life-jacket !

So, is this yet another ill conceived farce from the Uk DfT ? Or, there again, maybe they're just trying to protect us from those sneaky journalists ?! :E

Presumably you'll be required to check all the gaps between seat cushions too? Plus any part under the seat illicit items might be stowed?

Ludicrous.

DA,

I sympathise. We're introducing the same. But here's a few thoughts..

Are you sure? Is that true everywhere you go? and Ground staff...at all your destinations?

Again...Disclosure Scotland just tells you that someone hasn't got an unspent criminal record...nothing else. What level of " Security Vetting" is done on cleaners in , say , Corfu?

Six Jackets per crew member....so thats 18 for us.....on 148 seats. It's sampling really , isn't it. So definately smacks of " loophole in Crew Security checks that needs closing with a signature to blame someone if it all goes wrong"

I affraid that this sillyness will continue as long as the US has a chimp in charge of the White House and Britain has a chimps a*** licker in 10 Downing street. It's high time we voted these 2 dangerous individules out of power!

As long as this period of war mongering continues you can expect more and more of these stupid checks!

After all, passengers joining an aircraft have been through a supposedly rigorous system of security checks, right ?!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you sure? Is that true everywhere you go?

Certainly not at one very large UK airport. On a recent trip to Spain I picked up the wrong waist belt-bag and during the week found I'd taken my large Swiss Army Knife and a large nail file in error. The bag went through the x-ray machine but I was not challenged... On the way back I packed them "below".

So much for airport security

unablereqnavperf

Your name is as inane as your comments. Everyone of sound mind is anti-war whenever possible, it's not just the prerogative of lefties like you. Your spelling ability gives away your IQ level.

Here here,
The whole thing is purely box ticking, as with so much in aviation these days.
Can't wait til I'm able to sod off for something better that doesn't involve aeroplanes, George Dubya or our TB!!!! Grrrrr..

It's interesting that this has finally come on the agenda.

During the last year or so, I approached both the CAA and a number of carriers about the problem of missing lifejackets, but absolutely minimal interest was expressed by those approached.

Officially, the CAA view is that carriers are required to check compliance before EACH flight, but this is a rule followed more in the breach than the observance, and the CAA are not particularly zealous about enforcement!

To perform such a check manually would consume in the order of 5-10 person minutes for a typical 737/320 size aircraft, which is an undesirable extra burden, especially for the heavily time-constrained "low cost" carriers.

So, my company (:: airfid ::) proposed a solution based on RFID tag technology and portable tag readers. The checking process then becomes as simple as walking the length of the gangway (circa 1 minute), since each tagged lifejacket "speaks" its ID. The results can be a simple count, or a check against expected inventory for things like time expiry, etc. Absences can be identified and replacements provided. Moreover, the reader can be "holstered" at the exit to detect any unauthorized removals.

Maybe one of these days I'll get a BIG order, but meanwile I'm not going to hold my breath ;)

Cheers,
QV

The Southend King - I concur, wherein what you say is what I was alluding too ( the name is 'Devils Advocate' after all. ;) )

Needless to say, what we see on a daily basis is 'security' that's not a product of joined-up-thinking, just as it is not consistent throughout the EU and / or other parts of the world – as you say.

We've the farce that tweezers, nail clippers and the like, are disallowed (ex-UK), but wherein passengers can still procure and carry onboard duty-free flammable liquids housed in glass bottles, plus petrol & gas filled lighters to go with them. This is approved of at nearly all airports and at many airlines and where sometimes, in other countries and upon other airlines, you can purchase knives too.

We've the farce that the very expensive, supposedly bullet proof, flight deck door is housed in a non-bullet proof frame – go figure ?!

We've the farce that pilots sit in a flight deck, along with a very handy axe, and are entrusted with the priceless lives of the passengers, to say nothing of the value of the aeroplane, and yet they’re not trusted to take anything sharp through ‘security’.

We've the farce that Disclosure Scotland (DS) only works under UK legislation and has no jurisdiction to obtain criminal history information from other countries ( to say nothing of the fact that not all foreign countries have a system of recording criminal activity information ), just as they (DS) neither check religious or political leanings.
Indeed, one might suppose it quite likely that all of the 911 team would have passed DS - so long as they didn’t have a UK Criminal Record and were able to prove that they’d worked at, say, McDonald’s or some such, for the requisite amount of time to cover the employment history requirement.

It’s similarly a farce that many of the ‘crimes’, for which DS has caused people to have had their airside pass / livelihood suspended, are totally irrelevant to aviation security ( see here ).

As I wrote some time previously:Now we have the farce that our Cabin Crew have to search life-jackets because, as has been correctly said, a "loophole in Crew Security checks that needs closing with a signature to blame someone if it all goes wrong".

The whole thing is farcical !

Has anyone's life ever been saved by one of these things anyway?

Chuck em off and use the weight to burn off fuel after leaving stand on time regardless of slot to pretend we're 'on time':O

Interesting this has only just come to light. Our security search teams have been having to check these for just over a month. DfT regulations.

Erm we have to check the lifejackets on every turnaround, and i work for a "LoCo". But why check just six? Either do it right or dont bother at all!

I'm with Arkroyal on this. If you're going to insist on looking logically at security then you have to do the same with lifejackets. There are many devices that you could put on a plane for the same weight / cost as all the lifejackets and which would save significantly more lives. Lifejackets are an historical anachronism from the days of flying boats which (as far as I know) have never contributed to saving anyone in a big passenger jet crash - get rid of them!

Fair points though I am sure in something like the Ethiopean crash off the coast there were survivors and who knows who might have died if there had not been jackets.
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi_bin/v...opian+Airlines

Each time we get an edict , everyone gets stressed about how stupid it all is. well thats a given so chill out get on with it. the phrase
Water off a ducks back, springs to mind, or.....

organise a lobby group via a forum such as this. campaign, and present the facts. Thats what the rest of the world does. It might not achieve much but it may redirect your fustration away from stress and into activity. there is alot of pilots out there who would lend a signature or have the journo contacts to do a cutting piece.

personally for now i'll sign the form and THEN ask for a coffee.

Devils :

The text of the memo may give a little too much away of your employer. :ok:

As with most legislation these days, it only serves to be a pain in the bum to the law abidng(ie majority) of us, and actually gives credibility to those who have a concealed, nefarious outcome in mind. And will we get offered any finacial reward for putting ourselves in the front line against the war on trerrorism: I doubt it. By the way, could anyone show me where the ring of steel is? I've only found a ring of jelly.

And exactly who's neck will be on the block, when some suspicious article is found on board after all these security checks have been done and signed for?????

Pilots should refuse to sign these forms as the security checks are none of our business, and so we have no idea if they are completed or not.

Question
 

Yep ludicrous but my question is:

Is Joyce Tick cross?

Here Devil's Advocate -

With that list of qualifications, have you thought of a career in politics?

Has any pilot out there ever experienced any occasion on which life jackets have actually been needed? Or indeed slide rafts for that matter? How many lives have been saved by these devices? Probably none. The costs of them are huge in weight and maintenance/inspection requirements.

Several years ago I met a man who had been injured in an accident in which a Japan Air LInes DC8 had landed in the sea short of SFO. All the pax had been evacuated by boat and he had been injured by the fact that he had been forced to remove his shoes and his feet had been splintered by poor woodwork on the evacuating boat. I took up the matter with the CAA and as a result they changed their rule that you had to take your shoes off. It all goes to show that no one is normally doing any useful risk assessment.

Safety is always about managing risks. If you assess the risks of landing on sea you will find that all of those useless devices like life jackets and sliderafts are pointless and very expensive. I suggest that they be removed from aircraft.

Let us hope that this stimulates a debate on waht is actually needed to ensure the highest standards of safety. You can be sure that some of the regulators do not have much clue about waht that actually means.

Which airline is asking crew to do this?