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Tragic, horrid and going to make a lot of nervous flyers more nervous. I've been through some pretty heavy turbulence in my time, but thankfully nothing this s
by PaulRobinson 2y ago
Tragic, horrid and going to make a lot of nervous flyers more nervous.
I've been through some pretty heavy turbulence in my time, but thankfully nothing this severe. I've been through enough though to know that a lot of people don't take it very seriously. I've been on flights with screaming passengers, and _very_ quiet British Marines, both in reaction to some pretty nasty air, and I'm always surprised that turbulence surprises people. It's part of flying.
There's a reason why you're advised to keep your seatbelt fastened when seated. I simply don't understand some cabins that have cocktail bars in them - are you absolutely crazy? Air pockets are horrific, and there is nothing pilots can do to avoid unexpected ones. One minute you can be sipping your vodka martini, the next you can be thrown around to the point you're hitting the ceiling and then the floor within a couple of seconds of each other, and hard, hard enough to kill you.
Even on transatlantic flights (LHR to SFO or LAX is normal for me), I'm only getting out of my seat if I absolutely 100% have to go to the bathroom, and then I'm going to reduce time not buckled in to absolute minimum.
- coldtea 2y ago>There's a reason why you're advised to keep your seatbelt fastened when seated. I simply don't understand some cabins that have cocktail bars in them - are you absolutely crazy? No, just not pusillanimous about it, given the odds.
- ghaff 2y agoThere are a bunch of things airlines could do. Eliminate drink & food/snack service. Strap in 3 point harness for the whole trip and pee in a bottle if you must. I suspect those would be… unpopular. At least some airlines banned hardcover books during takeoff and landing for a time.
- onlyonhn2 2y agoCareful with the non-declared /s. Some of these people would actually push for these reforms given a little encouragement.
- pooper 2y agoCase in point, make self driving cars cheap enough (under USD 20k new for a decent electric car with self driving) and I'll gladly support a complete ban on humans driving on public roads if that means the self driving cars can coordinate and drive better.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoIf you're making such a major change to the infrastructure, replace the roads with train tracks, and the cars with electric trains. It'll be cheaper and safer. Cars that can only be driven by computers in controlled conditions defeat most of the point of having cars (i.e., mobility for people unable to use public transport).
- portaouflop 2y agoThe point of cars is to provide mobility for the disabled?I would guess we would have a lot less cars around if that were the case, at least in the city (no idea how it is in the US, I heard you can’t even walk there in some places so )
- wizzwizz4 2y agoGiven how wasteful they are, that's the only good justification for cars. But per the social model of disability (https://www.scope.org.uk/social-model-of-disability https://www.scope.org.uk/social-model-of-disability): > The model says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference. Barriers can be physical, like buildings not having accessible toilets. Or they can be caused by people's attitudes to difference, like assuming disabled people can't do certain things. in areas without usable public transport, everyone has this "disability". Individual action can't make public transport magically appear: only policy changes can do that. (Or anarchically setting up your own public transport, I suppose, but that'll probably get you arrested in America.)
- coldtea 2y agoWhy even allow people to go to places on their own (whether car or EV or public transport) without the written consent of the state?
- yawpitch 2y ago> No, just not pusillanimous about it, given the odds. Fascinating; an exemplar of both toxic masculinity and grandiloquence in a single word.
- shlant 2y ago>toxic masculinity Would love an explanation of how you got here
- yawpitch 2y agoDuckDuckGo search for “pusillanimous meaning”, 2nd definition from the top. > Destitute of a manly or courageous strength and firmness of mind Not much of a leap.
- portaouflop 2y agoI guess because it’s a snobby way of saying “they weren’t pussies about it”
- coldtea 2y agoYou've guessed wrong. The etymology is latin for "small (pussilus) spirit/courage (animus)" meaning "faint of heart".
- coldtea 2y agoYou keep using this term "toxic masculinity". I don't think it means what you think it means. Or perhaps you also think only men are brave enough to go to airplane bars (or to untie their belt or stand from their seat during a flight even when it's not "absolutely necessary"?)
- yawpitch 2y agoPer DuckDuckGo, the 2nd definition of “pusillanimous” in the American Heritage Dictionary is: > Destitute of a manly or courageous strength and firmness of mind; of weak spirit; mean-spirited; spiritless; cowardly; -- said of persons, “Destitute of a manly spirit” implies that there is such a thing as a manly spirit one can be more or less possessed of… that falls well and truly under the scope of the meaning of toxic masculinity. And perhaps you, for some reason, think that women aren’t perfectly able to engage in toxic masculinity? Either way, I only use the term where and when appropriate.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoPusillanimous: when Monty Python taught me a new word :-)
- simonbarker87 2y agoThis, I always have my seat belt fastened unless I really don’t need to be in my seat. On very long flights I will get up for a few minutes each hour but once I’m in my seat my belt is on.
- closewith 2y ago> I simply don't understand some cabins that have cocktail bars in them - are you absolutely crazy? Air pockets are horrific, and there is nothing pilots can do to avoid unexpected ones. The answer is that you're far more likely to choke on an olive at the bar than die due to turbulence.
- gpderetta 2y agoInterestingly a quick search can't find any hit for people dying by choking on a airplane bar. A few hits for turbulence though.
- dataengineer56 2y agoMaybe because choking to death is so common that it doesn't warrant news articles?
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoI guarantee you that if someone chokes to death on a Boeing airplane, it will make the news now.
- portaouflop 2y agoAbout 6000 people choke to death in the US every year. A couple hundred died during turbulences in the last 20 years. Data on olives/airline bars is inconclusive
- bergen 2y agoThe frequency of "eating stuff" should be a multiple of "being on a plane" I would assume
- portaouflop 2y agostatistic is hard :(
- 2y ago
- onlyonhn2 2y agoHow do you even cross a road with that approach to risk?
- PaulRobinson 2y agoBy looking both ways and therefore mitigating the risk through reducing the likelihood of being killed while crossing the road by oncoming traffic. The risk mitigation technique for dealing with severe turbulence which frequently injures people, and only rarely kills people (thankfully), is to keep your seatbelt loosely fastened, and get out of your seat only when you need to. The fact this is considered absurd by some replies here is a fascinating insight, TBH.
- poszlem 2y agoDo you compare the risk of sitting still during a long-haul flight and possibly developing a DVT to the risk of being killed by turbulence? I would argue that moving around on the plane actually reduces your chance of dying, as it lowers the very real risk of a DVT-related stroke or pulmonary embolism while keeping the risk of dying in strong turbulence still extremely low.
- onlyonhn2 2y agoThe sad thing is, sods law, whilst having a good chit chat at the bar on say a380 biz and doing about couples bottles of nice wine, or heck even in cattle in the area in front of emergency exits on wide bodies with fellow passenger consuming a few cans of beer (not sure if that works in US - definitely fine on Emirates, SG, Qatar and Etihad) pretending to stretch legs for a good hour, if there is any turbulence I'm probably going land on this guy's head, if he got up and moved about he probably would of survived. Not sure how you quantify that risk. Again, realistically, it so remotely low that any inconvenience isn't worth considering. Partially joking here, partially not.... Just ridiculous to worry about this remote chance to point of strapping yourself in for 10hrs+ and not moving
- Johnythree 2y agoThere are simple exercises that you can do while seated to avoid DVT. Just wriggling your toes help a lot, or flexing the muscles in your legs. I fly a lot on routes over the tropics and have experienced serious turbulence multiple times. There's no way I will be wandering around the cabin unnecessarily.
- marcinzm 2y agoWhen I walk in a city I don't spend my time constantly scanning the sky and every building around me for a potential falling object. Or research the structural history of every bridge I drive over then spend hours avoiding certain ones. Or a hundred other rare things that do kill people but statistically not often. Everyone dies one day and everyone has a single life. I don't see the point of spending that one life in constant fear of the end that cannot be avoided anyways without even meaningfully changing the timeline of that end.
- onlyonhn2 2y agoAgree. Has anyone died at Emirates A380 bar or Qatar minibar? Nope. I'll take my chances just as I do in thousands of scenarios a day that I just dont care to register.. This seems like a guy that when pair programming on someone else's keyboard uses gloves - we've all met them...
- PaulRobinson 2y agoIf you don't understand risk mitigation, or think it's someone else's job - even when, in the case of turbulence the professionals are telling you there is absolutely nothing they can do about it - then eventually you're just going to end up getting injured or killed by something that could be avoided. Yes, death by turbulence is rare, but there are dozens of serious injuries a year caused by turbulence in US air space alone. Hundreds a year, globally. We're not talking about a small graze or cut, we're talking head injuries, broken bones, life changing injuries. Costs US airlines half a billion dollars a year dealing with it in terms of payouts and maintenance costs. Why you think that doesn't apply to you is a strange take to me, but you do you.
- denkmoon 2y agoAccepting risk and believing it doesn’t apply to you are two vastly different things. I take it you don’t fly? How about driving? There is assumedly some line you draw for acceptable vs unacceptable risk I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say here or what you’re suggesting we should do
- DrBazza 2y ago> Tragic, horrid and going to make a lot of nervous flyers more nervous. Wear your seatbelt, wear your seatbelt, wear your seatbelt. They literally say that several times during pre-flight briefing video. That no-one pays attention to. I'd place a wager most of the injuries on this flight were seated but unbelted people, and not those going to the toilet.
- unsupp0rted 2y agoI wonder whether on average it's less risky on transatlantic flights to spend as much time out of your seat going to the bathroom, standing around, and stretching as possible vs. as much time buckled in as possible. My guess is lethal turbulence is so rare, and things like deep-vein thrombosis are so common compare to that rarity, that it's not even close.
- cinntaile 2y agoYou should move around pretty often to reduce the risk of blood clots. It's probably a better risk trade-off than trying to stay seated (and buckled-up) at all times besides going to the bathroom.
- kalleboo 2y ago> I simply don't understand some cabins that have cocktail bars in them Some First Class Suites cabins even have actual showers in them!
- standardUser 2y agoA great tip I heard long ago for nervous flyers - whenever their is turbulence, look at the flight staff. If they're going about business as usual and look otherwise relaxed, which is almost always the case, you've got nothing to worry about. Consider them turbulence experts, and if the experts aren't concerned you don't need to be either.
- JohnMakin 2y agoThis tip fails when the flight crew starts to look worried/concerned. But, I guess at that point, you have reason to be nervous. This happened during severe turbulence to me once, but it had the effect of making me a calmer flyer because it really was pretty bad (no one flew into the ceiling but they'd already made sure everyone had seatbelts fastened) and I ended up being fine.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zeekaran 2y agoSo I should start panicking when I see them back out and strap in? Because that's what happened on my last flight. I didn't panic, I just felt sick.
- standardUser 2y agoThey're just putting on their seatbelts. They may not even have a choice if the pilot tells them to, just like during takeoff and landing. It may also help to remember that flight attendants are, first and foremost, safety personnel. We think of them as sky waiters, but all of their training is for safety.
- mrb 2y agoBad tip. Case in point: on this very flight, 9 of the 18 crew members had moderate injuries (https://apnews.com/article/singapore-airlines-flight-turbulence-5a9a268e1a6a6fb9ece7e58b5ea9231b https://apnews.com/article/singapore-airlines-flight-turbule...)
- pjmlp 2y agoGetting full of coffee due to small air drop, has cured me to never have anything again that isn't inside of a closed bottle.
- vel0city 2y agoSome even have showers on the plane so you can freshen up before arrival on a long transcontinental flight. Imagine hitting turbulence like this in the shower.