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I’ve seen many posts like this in Russian media too. While the death toll is huge and the air carrier’s stock has plunged 3% down, there is a natural motivation

by mcsoft 7y ago

I’ve seen many posts like this in Russian media too. While the death toll is huge and the air carrier’s stock has plunged 3% down, there is a natural motivation for existence of social media fakes blaming passengers. Someone shared similar post on Facebook recently from an account that was created a few months ago and has posted only 3 meaningless picture shares ever since. Initially many media outlets did not even mention air carrier’s name in their stories covering the accident. From multiple video sources it’s clear that the plane caught fire only after violent progressive bouncing on runway. The preceding events (lightning strike, partial radio loss, overweight landing) set up a stage for a disaster but hardly were direct causes of the fire. Having been a private pilot for a while, we, pilots, are trained for emergencies. For example, my instructor routinely idles engine power without saying a word during flight reviews. On FAA practical test you are supposed to glide and land an airplane that lost power completely. Though I hope to never encounter engine loss in real life, I did dozens of practice approaches with zero power. However passengers are never trained. This accident’s survivor witnessed that screams started after first bounce. When gear failed and fire ignited on second or third kick screams got louder. One couldn’t hear crew instructions in this mess. You can’t be sure you’d behave rationally until you’re there. If we want extra safety we should train for rare situations like this. How many ditching incidents you can recall beyond Hudson miracle of 2009? Then why explain how to inflate a life vest every time on board. Shouldn’t we better teach passengers to leave their belongings, to crawl under smoke, to push other people out if they are unconscious? I would create a financial incentive for those travelers who undergone such a training and passed certain test. Statistically, however, commercial flying today is much safer than traveling by car. In the US alone about 100 people are killed on the road every single day. So if we are optimizing for the number of souls lost during transportation, it is unclear what needs to be fixed with a top priority.

Someone 7y ago
”Shouldn’t we better teach passengers to leave their belongings, to crawl under smoke, to push other people out if they are unconscious?” Teaching will help only a little, at best. You would have to train passengers. The more they’re under stress, the harder it is for untrained passengers to deviate from their standard “leave a plane” program. That includes taking one’s luggage and waiting for other passengers. And yes, that applies to the life vests instructions, too. Advantage there is, that if you need those, chances are you’ll have minutes to prepare (but often, passengers still will make the mistake of opening them while inside the plane)
- mcsoft 7y ago
  Agree. You can't rely on everyone's behaving rationally. You should rather expect panic. Though knowing there could be smoke or you might need to crawl will trigger thoughts at least in a subset of people and will increase an overall survival rate. As for life vests - even in Hudson accident they were left unused. Maybe in the 1960s they were helpful but for now they look obsolete. Chances are you'll get fire rather than ditching. I feel their value is more psychological.
orbital-decay 7y ago
>However passengers are never trained. That depends on the aircraft type though. Helicopter passengers that are traveling over large bodies of water (e.g. offshore platform workers) are usually required to go through emergency training. In many jurisdictions that includes escaping a sinking helicopter in a (physical) simulator, and that's a rather unpleasant procedure, to put it mildly.

by mcsoft 7y ago

Someone 7y ago

”Shouldn’t we better teach passengers to leave their belongings, to crawl under smoke, to push other people out if they are unconscious?” Teaching will help only a little, at best. You would have to train passengers. The more they’re under stress, the harder it is for untrained passengers to deviate from their standard “leave a plane” program. That includes taking one’s luggage and waiting for other passengers. And yes, that applies to the life vests instructions, too. Advantage there is, that if you need those, chances are you’ll have minutes to prepare (but often, passengers still will make the mistake of opening them while inside the plane)

mcsoft 7y ago
Agree. You can't rely on everyone's behaving rationally. You should rather expect panic. Though knowing there could be smoke or you might need to crawl will trigger thoughts at least in a subset of people and will increase an overall survival rate. As for life vests - even in Hudson accident they were left unused. Maybe in the 1960s they were helpful but for now they look obsolete. Chances are you'll get fire rather than ditching. I feel their value is more psychological.

orbital-decay 7y ago

>However passengers are never trained. That depends on the aircraft type though. Helicopter passengers that are traveling over large bodies of water (e.g. offshore platform workers) are usually required to go through emergency training. In many jurisdictions that includes escaping a sinking helicopter in a (physical) simulator, and that's a rather unpleasant procedure, to put it mildly.