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This is a reminder that the announcement that you should "keep your seat belt fastened at all times when you're in your seat" isn't just something someone made
by lutorm 10y ago
This is a reminder that the announcement that you should "keep your seat belt fastened at all times when you're in your seat" isn't just something someone made up. It's a small price to pay in case you ever encounter severe turbulence en route, but it might be one of these things that most people don't realize until it happens to them. Hitting your head against the cabin ceiling can seriously put a damper on your trip.
- taejavu 10y agoYeah I'm pretty sure that's the first rule that goes out the window when you're on a private jet.
- danaliv 10y agoAnd it's the number one way you're going to get injured. Keep your seatbelt buckled, even when the sign is off.
- umanwizard 10y agoFlying is already so incredibly torturously uncomfortable for me that the very slight risk of injury or death is worse it for the increased comfort of not having a seatbelt on.
- davrosthedalek 10y agoIt is worth the risk for the persons next to you or the row over when you get thrown through the plane and hit them in the head?
- umanwizard 10y agoSince I don't get upset when other people do things for their own comfort that make me extremely slightly less safe to a similar extent, the Golden Rule school of ethics suggests: "yes".
- silverdrake11 10y agoI wonder if your head would actually hit the cabin ceiling though because of the centrifugal force. The plane might have flipped too quickly for that to happen
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- M_Grey 10y agoThere's a reason that people with money and power don't always experience good outcomes. Sure, you can do what you like on your jet, and therefore expose yourself to risk that most people never experience. Likewise skiing off-piste or a number of other equally silly activities that you can do, but absolutely shouldn't.
- fulafel 10y agoProbably they have a different idea about risk management than more risk-averse people. Worrying a lot about very low probability events is not compatible with the risk-taking typically required to make a lot of money. After all millionaires are largely a "survivor club" filtered from high risk appetite workaholics.
- M_Grey 10y agoI don't know about that. I think mostly it has to do with having the power to pick and choose critical service providers, bully them, etc. If Michael Jackson and Steve Jobs had not been as wealthy and powerful as they had been, they would also both probably be alive. Neither has much to do with being risk-takers, although you might be right that a higher arousal threshold desensitized them to risk. It may also be that people used to winning, on some level, expect to keep winning. Either way, we're not just talking about Fortune 500 C-levels here, plenty of people with loads of money and power did nothing to get it, and have no special qualities associated with that ability to get it. They still often have bad outcomes.
- JumpCrisscross 10y agoNever in my experience.
- xapata 10y agoPrivate planes also crash far more often than standard airline flights. Case in point: Chapecoense.
- geezerjay 10y agoIIRC, the Chapecoense flight was done by a private charter company which provided services to football teams. That was not a private jet incident at all.
- xapata 10y agocharter ~ jet No?
- Neliquat 10y agoCharter =/= Private To us it is the same, but to the person with a private jet, there is a substantial difference.
- xapata 10y agoAh, right. Like a weekly maid versus a live-in maid. Still, as far as I know, the safety of standard commercial airlines is much better than both charters and private planes. Without the regulators to monitor the maintenance and pilots, it turns out people take more risks.
- mikeash 10y agoIt's not even a rule on airliners, merely a suggestion. I'm sure silly people on private jets will keep their seat belt off when seated, but plenty of silly people do that on airliners too.
- wfunction 10y agoWhile I agree with the general sentiment, to be honest there are easier solutions here. They could've just turned on the sign as soon as they saw the A380 so that people could fasten their seatbelts then. And then turned off the sign when the threat was gone. You don't need a cannon to kill a fly.
- M_Grey 10y agoIn the 1-2 minutes between this thing booming past them, and being sent into a spin... you want them telling people to buckle up? That doesn't seem like the easier solution; it mostly sounds like a way to have people still hurrying in the aisles when it's too late.
- wfunction 10y agoEven half a minute minute is a hell of a lot of time and overwhelmingly better than no notice. Currently airplanes sometimes only turn on the sign after the turbulence has already started. Also, it's not like they never have no idea which airplanes are around them until they visually see the airplane. They could turn on the sign earlier if they know earlier.
- M_Grey 10y agoI mean you say that, but wasn't this an accident predicated on not being aware of the positions of other planes? You're basically saying that we should plan for accidents, because wearing a seatbelt is somehow... what? Cumbersome? If your neurological integrity isn't worth some hours in a seat, I guess that's your choice to make though.
- wfunction 10y ago> I mean you say that, but wasn't this an accident predicated on not being aware of the positions of other planes? Uh, no? "an Airbus A380-800 was observed by the crew passing 1000 feet above" http://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3 http://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3 > You're basically saying that we should plan for accidents Yes, whenever possible. It should make sense, really. > because ...because it's sometimes possible and predictable, in which case it logically makes sense to plan for it. > wearing a seatbelt is somehow... what? Cumbersome? Not because of that. But yes, it is cumbersome. Makes it harder to relax, sleep, get up, etc... is this really that shocking to you?
- sundvor 10y agoTrue.I would think this would be more of a problem for people from US states where wearing a seatbelt is not mandatory. In other parts of the world (with more sense) such as Europe, Australia, we're conditioned to always using it due to strict enforcement and as such it's not such a novelty.
- throwanem 10y agoThe only such US state is New Hampshire. (Because of course it is.)
- uzoodoo 10y agoLive free or DIE!
- gingerbread-man 10y agoSpeaking as someone who has actually done seatbelt enforcement, (I worked as a cop for a year after college before getting into software development,) catching people who aren't wearing their seatbelts is really, really hard. Each seatbelt ticket written probably takes ~30 minutes of time for the issuing officer.
- burkemw3 10y agoI'm interested in hearing the intracacies!
- gingerbread-man 10y agoThere really aren't any good trick to it-- it's just a matter of finding a good vantage point and watching each driver go by. You're supposed to note the color of the belt (black) and the color of the driver's shirt before pulling the car over. As you'd imagine, fatigue comes quickly-- I never did more than an hour or two at a time. (I still have no idea how the highway patrollmen can it all day, every day without losing their minds.) NHTSA provides substantial grant funding for traffic-safety enforcement, conditional on the department's enforcement statistics for a particular set of safety-oriented violations, especially seatbelts. The brass encouraged us to take a minimum number of enforcement actions to maximize the chances of having the grant expanded. (It paid a for substantial chunk of our salaries and offered regular 1 1/2 overtime.)
- M_Grey 10y agoWhen I was in single digits, my mother and I were coming home from an international flight and the plane was struck by lightning. We lost a bit of altitude (felt like a TON of altitude subjectively), and yeah... it was a damned good thing we'd all been told to keep those seatbelts on. It was literally the difference between seconds of terror, and someone being seriously injured.
- ghshephard 10y agoUsing that philosophy, then anyone riding a bicycle, even if they aren't going at high-speed on road, should wear a helmet "just in case" there is an accident to protect their skull? There is a balance between annoyance and utility. I personally have no problem wearing a belt for the entire flight, including while sleeping. But I'm not to dismayed by those who leave it off, walk around the cabin, go hang out near the cocktail lounge in business class, etc...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sulam 10y agoYes, you absolutely should wear a helmet, just in case -- no quotes required. I have been hit by a car on my bike, and trust me, my helmet absolutely saved my life. No high speed required.
- webignition 10y agoYes, you should absolutely wear a helmet when riding a bicycle at low speeds. Your skull is vulnerable to impacts at speeds that are relatively low compared to full-speed cycling. On a few occasions I've witnessed a cyclist panic and wobble after being passed far too closely by a car traveling far too fast for such a manoeuvre. This has caused such cyclists to wobble, inadvertently clip the curb and mount the pavement, fall off sideways and subsequently strike their head on a nearby wall whilst falling. The resulting injury can be very harmful. Another example of slow-speed head injury: off-road biking down a very steep incline with a loose surface. I've seen people fall and tumble at almost stationary speeds.
- sandworm101 10y agoOr, as with cars, just be in the bigger car. Another a380 would probably have shaken off this encounter. Size, and the flex that comes with size, flattens out these things.
- wallace_f 10y agoCan we talk about this in terms of actual statistics? How dangerous is flying without a seatbelt relative to say, driving without one?
- tinco 10y agoi don't think you can even compare those, driving without a seatbelt is a ridiculously unsafe idea.
- gingerbread-man 10y agoPer the FAA (https://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_safe/turbulence/ https://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_safe/turbulence/): - Each year, approximately 58 people in the United States are injured by turbulence while not wearing their seat belts. - From 1980 through 2008, U.S. air carriers had 234 turbulence accidents, resulting in 298 serious injuries and three fatalities. - Of the 298 serious injuries, 184 involved flight attendants and 114 involved passengers. - At least two of the three fatalities involved passengers who were not wearing their seat belts while the seat belt sign was illuminated. - Generally, two-thirds of turbulence-related accidents occur at or above 30,000 feet. Edit: These stats do not include general aviation (private jets, etc...).
- gingerbread-man 10y agoFor comparison, about 10,000 unrestrained motorists die in fatal vehicular accidents every year, and millions are injured. https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/seatbelts/facts.html https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/seatbelts/facts.html
- wallace_f 10y agoSo according to this answer[1], ~1.7MM fly/day. Making a quick guess that from '80-'08, Americans average 1MM flights/day, then odds of serious injury are ~1 in 95,000. Odds of death are 1 in 9,333,333. Assuming the possibility of taking 3 'average' flights/day, then you'd need to board flights non-stop for 8,523 years to die, on average. 88 years to be injured. [1] - https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-fly-domestically-in-the-United-States-each-day https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-fly-domestically-in-th...