Reason behind safety: a must read

Now a day’s safety instructions are something that are taken for granted; everybody thinks that the one in a million chance of being involved in a plane crash will never happen. Statically speaking “The National Safety Council”, based in United States of America, did an odd-of-dying table back in the year 2008. In this investigation results showed that a car accident is more probable to happen 1 in 98 for a lifetime, while the odd in dying in a plane crash is 1 in 7178 for a lifetime. In the year 2012 IATA (The Internatinal Air Transport Association) issued a report stating that it was from recorded history the best year in matters of commercial air travel: only three recorded fatal crashes of western-built passenger aircrafts occurred but none belonged to IATA members.

People tend to believe that when you are in a plane accident you are for sure to die but that is not entirely true. According to the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board – United Stated of America) the chances of surviving a serious incident are high (but not that high): 76,6 % and the odds increases when passengers follow instructions and respond quickly during the event.

When we say “fasten your seats belts” we actually mean it. The fact that passengers don´t fasten their seat belts just because they want to behave like rebellious children is a worldwide fact in every airline and in every class. The seat belt is for prevention and protection not only for you but also for others. The intention of the seat belt is to wear it and that is it. Not only it will hold your body to the seat during take-off and landing but also when there is turbulence (air pockets) it protects you from flying to the ceiling and hitting your head against the roof. The seat belt was design to hold your body firmly and prevent life threatening injuries. Not only it protects you but also the people that are around you because when you “fly” during an air pocket you might hurt someone else. When you travel with children also secure their seat belts during the flight even if they lay down to sleep between seats. If you have to make a strange invention of zig-zag multi seat belt display, just do it. It´s better to have your children safe and secure than flying around the cabin while there is turbulence.

Also, in a real life emergency descent if you are already strapped to the seat preparing yourself for the brace position you increase your survival odds; if you are not strapped it means that the most likely thing is that you´re passed out due to the bump onto your head (in case of real life emergency we have to secure the cabin as fast as we can and then go immediately to our stations – in extreme cases passengers need to help other passengers and the cabin can´t be totally secured). When we go to our stations (were the jump-seat is) and we seat there we previously inform the passengers seated in that row if they can act consciously to perform and assist an evacuation if I´m (crew) passed out, injured or dead. So when we say to you before take-off if you feel responsible enough to seat there we actually say it for a reason.

We ask passengers seated in that row to please know how to open the door in case of a real life emergency before take-off. In your next flight the person seated in the emergency exit row might have the same level of responsibility than the crew seated in front of him, that´s why they need to be physically fit, know how to speak fluent English and if possible young.

When you are in an airport performing the check-in and the counter woman refuses to give you the emergency exit seat it´s maybe because you probably don´t fit in the security criteria or that it is already designated to a staff members.

The next item in the list is life vest: when you seat down check if the life vest is there, in case of ditching (water landing) you´ll need it. Don´t be afraid of opening the hatch if you are travelling in First or Business and see if the plastic bag is there with its yellow thing in it. In case of ditching in extreme cases there is no time to hand out lifejackets and because of this is better to check beforehand if everything is where it should be.

The “brace brace” melody is not a song to sing is an action to follow: put your head on your knees and grab your ankles. This is the best position out of all that you may find because it reduces all possible injuries. When the airplane has a fast deceleration your back rest will bend automatically forward to prevent objects from harming you, if you are already bend in your seat the back rest will protect you even more.

Another very important point is: don´t grab your phone and start recording the moment. Every single object that is not firmly tight down in a secure place will fly through the cabin like a projectile so your phone might actually injure or kill someone. Don´t tape the moment, don´t use your phone or camera or whatever device to capture what is happening. By doing so you might put to an end someone else’s.

Locate you nearest emergency exit and count how many rows your seat is from there and if we say “exit blocked” it means that the exit is actually blocked. Let me put it in a more simple way: or there is fire outside the aircraft or jet-fuel spreaded out in that area or even the Ocean might be knocking that door so don´t insist to open it. If you have to open that door for yourself the first thing to do is check the outside conditions because you might survived the crash but if you exit that way you might die of incineration.

When you evacuate the aircraft don´t carry any item with you. Once again let me describe examples of items: passports sweaters coats purses trolleys duffle bag bags laptop i-phone Blackberry i-pad any type of mobile phone necessarie camara video camara, whatever you carried into the airplane you just leave it behind. Not only you may slow down evacuation but if you take any of those items while you jump onto the slide you might pinch it, so NO you can´t take any item with you: no items with you while you try to save your life. This is not the case of: if your house is on fire and you may save 3 things, which things would you save? This is not a game and this is not a house that caught on fire; this is an aircraft with jet-fuel. Whatever you lose the airline and in some cases the Government will give it back.

In case of lost of cabin pressure just take the nearest oxygen mask to you and even if the bag doesn´t inflate oxygen will still flow. Oxygen will sooth you down and calm you a little bit even if your body is pumping huge flows of adrenaline. And no, the urban legend that say´s that aircraft designers built the oxygen tubes not only with oxygen but also with sedatives it´s fake: we need you to be responsive and act quickly during an emergency, we don´t need you to fall sleep (even if you want to).

So please follow instructions provided by Crew and if you already heard and seen three thousand four hundred times the safety briefing just do it again, it might actually save your life.

(I don´t own the above picture)