Those annoying preflight announcements
Every time I fly, I find myself annoyed by the preflight announcements. As they rattle on over the PA “…In the event of a water landing…” I want to interject “We will all die!”, but I never say it, don’t wanna jinx the flight. Instead I look at the illustrated safety card and think that about how ridiculous the illustrations are. The guy over at airtoons.com has come up with his own illustrations for the cards.
Today I came across this post on Boing Boing and it made me chuckle. The post is a summary of the original piece in the Economist speculating on what a truthful announcement would be like.
Highlights include:
The flight attendants are now pointing out the emergency exits. This is the part of the announcement that you might want to pay attention to. So stop your sudoku for a minute and listen: knowing in advance where the exits are makes a dramatic difference to your chances of survival if we have to evacuate the aircraft.
Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero.
Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft’s navigation systems. At least, that’s what you’ve always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn’t sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it.
Please consume alcohol in moderate quantities so that you become mildly sedated but not rowdy. That said, we can always turn the cabin air-quality down a notch or two to help ensure that you are sufficiently drowsy.
But unfortunately, the airlines know better than to scare the flying public like that. Instead we all sit there half-listening, looking at SkyMall magazine wondering who in the world buys that stuff.
Unfortunately, this happens to be incorrect, as Wikipedia’s Water landing article documents extensively.
Thanks for the comment, it is appreciated.
Please keep in mind that the original post in the Economist Opinion section, and my post by extension are based upon satire.
I was surprised, however, when I read the Wikipedia entry you referenced, that it seems to support the original post:
I believe that the key words in the statement are “wide-bodied” and “successful”. “Wide-bodied” is a term that can be easily agreed upon, but I am not sure how to define “successful”. Is it from the survivors’ perspective or those who perished?
Personally, I think any water landing of any aircraft where it is not a part of your itinerary is automatically defined as being very unsuccessful.
(Note: Wikipedia is a rapidly changing website and the references and information could change at any time.)
To be honest if u dont want to listen to the preflight safety demonstration then you are endangering the you life and those around you.
If a plane lands in water yes .. YOU will die
but people who did infact listen will not
sadly we dont do the safety demo for your entertainment
you never know when u will be called upon to be an ABP in an emercency situation
Its a shame that people like this idiot are willing to risk their own lives and the lives of those around them. good luck sitting next to this jackass on a flight.
I never updated this to reflect the amazing landing this past January 2009. I was on my way to DC for Obama’s Inauguration via NYC when I heard news of the miraculous landing on the Hudson.
While this was not a “wide-bodied” aircraft, as described in the above post, I am relieved to hear that large commercial aircraft can survive a crash landing on water.