What was it about the emergency landing that made you surprised that lap only belts are still the norm? (Apologies if I'm asking about something blindingly obvious but I've not been in an aircraft-damaging emergency landing and I'm really interested to hear more about your experience.)
Having been once in a aircraft-damaging emergency landing* decades ago I am surprised lap only belts are still the norm. There's a reason the crew has four point restraints, and I'd like to have it too.
* I won't call it a crash since the aircraft made it to an airport and to a runway. We had equipment failure in flight so there was plenty of time for the flight attendants to review our crash positions, confiscate shoes, move people around etc. Everybody survived and I think everybody survived the emergency slides intact. Very exciting to mid-20s me.
I've experienced maximum breaking in an emergency landing.
Many passengers (including me) instinctively put their hands on the seat in front to steady themselves. You could easily slide around if the seat belt were loose.
It was it worst for children whose legs didn't reach the floor, but there were none seated near me.
It is trivial to see how someone sitting there not seat belted could have perished. You do understand that long stretches of flight allow you to be unseatbelted right?
If they spent the time to describe all of the rare-yet-possible ways a person could die on an airliner, the thing would never leave the gate.
At some level, take their mandated-by-regulations word for it? -- these regs are written in blood, and they say to buckle your belt, not only when the sign is lighted, but also any time when seated at your seat.
Boeing has done a good job of reminding us of some non-turbulence reasons to buckle up. You might also get sucked out of an unsecured exit door plug on a 737. :) I haven't heard that one mentioned in a safety brief yet.
In the pilot circles I frequent, the joke about seatbelts is that it helps accident investigators more easily count the deceased among the wreckage. So there's some YOLO fuel for your next trip. This was a freak occurrence. It's sad and it sucks. The injuries to passengers were likely preventable -- less so the cabin crew. New word is that the fatality was a cardiac event -- no belt buckle helps anyone there.
Such an over-crowded flight would have caused
problems in an emergency evacuation, aviation
experts said, and passengers would not have
had access to oxygen if it was suddenly required.
Additionally, you don't wear a seatbelt on a plane to save you from a crash, you wear it to stop yourself being injured during turbulence, or from injuring someone else by being thrown onto them. Obviously these people did not have seatbelts.
One of the great things of the last ~25 years is the small n in regards to commercial aircraft fatalities. This report is dated 2015 but I wonder if it would be any different a decade later. In the prior 50 years, plane crashes were, maybe not common, but something you’d read about every month or so.
The only emergency landing I’ve been in where the crew briefed us on position and checked us was hands on the back of the seat in front. Luckily it wasn’t a crash and the fire was quickly contained on the ground. Turned out the shoe removal was the most inconvenient but perhaps the most useful (evacuation slides worked, but then we were on hot tarmac without shoes).
What astonished me the most was how everybody went along and didn’t complain. This was almost 35 years ago —- I wonder if that would still be the case. These days I have seen pictures of people sliding down the evacuation slides with hand luggage!
Hearing stories like this over the years is why I always wear the seatbelt during the entirety of any flight... Just one of those small things that could make all the difference in a sudden emergency situation.
Sad about the injured and especially the dead person.
I don't think most people realise how violent turbulence can be or how badly things can go. In my last flight, someone on my row removed the seatbelt as soon the light went out and then when we landed, before we exited the runway. Like, why? If it bothers you that much, don't wear it too tight... but at least wear it.
> Neither victim was using her seatbelt. It is likely that these passengers would have remained in the cabin and survived if they had been wearing their seatbelts
I have experienced a dive like this (EasyJet Geneva-Copenhagen, 2013). It was really scary, to say the least. But apparently this is a relatively common situation, and aircrafts are sturdy enough to handle this without any problems.
(Also, one of the reasons to fit your seat belt correctly).
I have some perspective in having been in an emergency landing (fortunately less fiery than the 777 event). Our plane was in trouble so the flight attendants had plenty of time to go around and confiscate our shoes, remove everything from under the seats, make sure our pockets were empty, check our brace positions, and switch passengers around (this was 25 years ago so I was put in the emergency row as I was strong enough to open the over wing door).
It's a long story but the relevant parts are:
1 - I broke the rules and pocketed my passport with 200 US dollars folded into it. Which meant when the plane was on the ground and they were figuring out what to do with all these passengers I was able to get out, get someone to let me back onto the plane for my stuff, and get myself on another flight. I'd do that again, but I would not bring my phone (too dangerous when whizzing down that slide).
2 - Most people don't realize that the flight attendants are mainly there for safety and all that drink crud etc is just to keep the swells distracted and under control. I think the very safety of flight and the rareness of incident means people don't bother to consider what they'd do in an accident and so kid of go into autopilot.
There were many years when I worried what to do about my computer, but these days everything is backed up into the cloud so I can afford to lose it in a fire.
BTW despite all the excitement the amount of view was minimal and I (as a total non-expert) think they could have skipped the evacuation. I have read that the FAA is satisfied if you slide down and break your ankle -- but don't burn to death.
I was in a rejected take off. I collected my phone from the cockpit door after it flew there from my hand. Without the seatbelt, I would have flown too.
I never found out the reason. I thought they would have to report it and I could read it in av herald.
don't know how big a deal the harness really is. Even getting out of a helicopter underwater with a regular 4 or 5 point harness with a single-point twist buckle after a crash, especially if the vehicle isn't perfectly vertical, if there's debris or gear inside, etc. is going to be very difficult for anyone who hasn't trained in it.
Well, the pilot -- wearing a normal belt -- was the sole survivor; and claims that he tried to disengage the belt of the passenger next to him unsuccessfully before escaping.
from the NTSB preliminary report:
"After impacting the water, the chin bubble on the pilot's side began to fill with water, which quickly covered the floor. He kept his restraint on and reached down for the front seat passenger's carabiner attachment to the helicopter. He turned the knurled screw "two or three rotations"; by that time, the helicopter was "listing past a 45° roll." He then decided to egress
the helicopter, and by the time he unbuckled his restraint, he was fully under water."
Very remarkable indeed, considering the damage to the landing gear, flaps, fuel tanks, and engine controls. The airplane at the time it landed was way out into the experimental flying zone.
When people talk of pilot-less airliners I have to think of incidents like this. Pilots do make mistakes and people die as a result, but when equipment fails and nobody dies because a pilot does what is needed to land safely despite the issue, it rarely makes news. Sometimes people on board don't even know.
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