7 ms·

I've never seen turbulence like this. And until fairly recently I didn't know it was really possible. So it's a bit like "why don't people wear a welding mask

I've never seen turbulence like this. And until fairly recently I didn't know it was really possible. So it's a bit like "why don't people wear a welding mask while cooking?" It was never even a risk that I had considered before.

dboreham 2y ago
Guessing you are on the younger side. People my age know to wear the seat belt due to watching coverage of aloha flight 243 in 1988.
- andybak 2y ago
  No. I'm 53 and I didn't watch anything about that flight. I wasn't watching much TV at that stage of my life.
DHowett 2y ago
> So it's a bit like "why don't people wear a welding mask while cooking?" Your kitchen does not have staff telling you to make sure you are wearing a welding mask. It may also lack appropriate indicator lamps that tell you when it is a good time to wear your welding mask. It is also not standard practice in all kitchens. It’s actually not like airplane seatbelts at all, where they are ubiquitous and the risks of not wearing them are fairly well-documented.
- andybak 2y ago
  > Your kitchen does not have staff telling you to make sure you are wearing a welding mask. The advice to wear your seat belt throughout the flight are hardly clear and emphatic. They often make it sound like something they have to say to cover their asses. There's certainly no clear comms around the risk of death and serious injury. I have no idea in this case whether the indicators went on in time but I obviously wasn't arguing in favour of ignoring those. > the risks of not wearing them are fairly well-documented. Where? Where would I have seen this documentation? I'm 53 and I have no recollection of stumbling across it. (also - please reconsider your tone next time. It feels like you're trying to get me riled up)
  - schmookeeg 2y ago
    Yes, they say it to cover their asses -- for the very very rare occasion when an unbelted passenger ends up stuffed into the overhead lighting panel or carry-on baggage compartments. :) Seat belts in cars also contain several CYA-grade chimes and buzzers. The owner manual may mention risk of injury or death. Likely an airline's contract of carriage contains the same. I suspect both are read as often and as eagerly by their users. I think the multiple "off tone" messages you're getting are in response to your use of ignorance as a defense for ignoring airplane crew instructions.
    - andybak 2y ago
      > [..] in response to your use of ignorance as a defense for ignoring airplane crew instructions. Unless I come from an alternate universe - most people wear their seatbelt during take-off and landing and when the seatbelt light comes on. I wear mine through most of the flight but I only started doing this fairly recently because I learned more about turbulence. I'm not defending ignorance at all. I'm simply describing how poorly the risks are communicated and the reality that most people I've observed don't wear seatbelts for the entire duration of a flight unless the warning light comes on.
      - gilbetron 2y ago
        Nearly every flight they state that you should keep your seatbelt buckled at all times. If someone decides that they don't need to do that, it is because of their willful ignorance, sorry.
      - schmookeeg 2y ago
        If they spent the time to describe all of the rare-yet-possible ways a person could die on an airliner, the thing would never leave the gate. At some level, take their mandated-by-regulations word for it? -- these regs are written in blood, and they say to buckle your belt, not only when the sign is lighted, but also any time when seated at your seat. Boeing has done a good job of reminding us of some non-turbulence reasons to buckle up. You might also get sucked out of an unsecured exit door plug on a 737. :) I haven't heard that one mentioned in a safety brief yet. In the pilot circles I frequent, the joke about seatbelts is that it helps accident investigators more easily count the deceased among the wreckage. So there's some YOLO fuel for your next trip. This was a freak occurrence. It's sad and it sucks. The injuries to passengers were likely preventable -- less so the cabin crew. New word is that the fatality was a cardiac event -- no belt buckle helps anyone there.
- etrautmann 2y ago
  People are constantly bombarded with seemingly unnecessary warnings. I frequently assume that these warnings are to insulate a company from legal trouble and not really to protect me. This might be an American perspective.
  - radicality 2y ago
    Something interesting I’ve seen on my recent domestic United flight, which I don’t think I’ve seen before. While the flight safety video was being played, a male flight attendant was walking through the cabin and actively telling people with headphones on (connected to their own device), to take them off and listen to the safety video. It wasn’t a recommendation though, he would wait until the person complied and would then continue down the aisle. I didn’t have any headphones on. At first it felt a little bit overboard, but with events like this turbulence happening, I can see the need for it.
  - dalyons 2y ago
    See: many airlines that still warn to put your phones in airplane mode, despite that being known nonsense for decades
    - ghaff 2y ago
      It may still be a good idea because of battery but basically no one cares. Contra early days of smartphones when there near altercations with passengers responding to one last email after the doors closed.
    - miki123211 2y ago
      It's not "known nonsense", but not for the reason you think. There's a small risk of your phone connecting to some random carrier located in whatever country you're currently flying over. For some smaller / third-world countries, this can be quite expensive, cents-per-megabyte isn't unheard of.
      - avar 2y ago
        Every time this is brought up people come out of the woodworks with post-hoc rationale for this rule that has no basis in historical fact. This comment is good example. Why would the FAA and other aviation regulatory agencies care about your phone bill?
entitledas 2y ago
[flagged]
- andybak 2y ago
  If you read what I said it was nothing about "not following rules" - what rules did you mean? And thanks for insulting me when it seems to be an issue with your reading comprehension.
  - toss1 2y ago
    Umm, I also found it to be a remarkably bad analogy. More accurate would be something like: "The chef instructor telks us every time we cook this flaming oil dish that can flame over unpredictably at any time so we should wear the welding helmet whenever possible. And I didn't bother and found it surprising." Seriously, they tell us EVERY TIME ti wear seat belts at all times when seated. They don't do it just to annoy, confuse, or mislead the passengers. The only surprising thing to me is that such deaths are not more frequent. Despite efforts to predict turbulence, the forces at play when flying 600mph are insane in relation to the human body. We need to respect that, because physics really DGAF about our opinions.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
maxerickson 2y ago
A better analogy is probably having a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. (Because instead of implying that the safety device is absurd, it implies that some people ignore the obvious)
piva00 2y ago
Do you fly over the tropics? To me it's not so uncommon to experience heavier turbulence when crossing the equator to the tropic of Capricorn, haven't experienced turbulence bad enough to see people pushed straight through the cover of the oxygen masks but I've been in a couple of flights where I experienced big drops in a split second, thankfully never seen anyone badly injured just some poor soggy bastard that was thrown around in the bathroom and people hitting their heads on the overhead bins. I just always wear my seatbelt per the flight attendants' instructions, "keep your seatbelts fastened while seated" is a recommendation in every flight I've ever taken in my life.
93po 2y ago
i do in fact wear safety glasses when frying stuff and oil is splattering but you're right that most don't
lurking_swe 2y ago
Pro tip: air travel “rules” are written in blood. There’s (usually) a reason rules exist.
cafebeen 2y ago
It’s more like keeping a fire extinguisher in your kitchen. Some people may never need it, but grease fires happen often enough to plan for it.
- blangk 2y ago
  A fire blanket may be easier for the kitchen
bmitc 2y ago
When you're cooking, you're not thousands of feet in the air in tight quarters traveling hundreds of miles per hour through the atmosphere in a however many ton vessel filled with flammable fuel.

dboreham 2y ago

Guessing you are on the younger side. People my age know to wear the seat belt due to watching coverage of aloha flight 243 in 1988.

andybak 2y ago
No. I'm 53 and I didn't watch anything about that flight. I wasn't watching much TV at that stage of my life.

DHowett 2y ago

> So it's a bit like "why don't people wear a welding mask while cooking?" Your kitchen does not have staff telling you to make sure you are wearing a welding mask. It may also lack appropriate indicator lamps that tell you when it is a good time to wear your welding mask. It is also not standard practice in all kitchens. It’s actually not like airplane seatbelts at all, where they are ubiquitous and the risks of not wearing them are fairly well-documented.

andybak 2y ago
> Your kitchen does not have staff telling you to make sure you are wearing a welding mask. The advice to wear your seat belt throughout the flight are hardly clear and emphatic. They often make it sound like something they have to say to cover their asses. There's certainly no clear comms around the risk of death and serious injury. I have no idea in this case whether the indicators went on in time but I obviously wasn't arguing in favour of ignoring those. > the risks of not wearing them are fairly well-documented. Where? Where would I have seen this documentation? I'm 53 and I have no recollection of stumbling across it. (also - please reconsider your tone next time. It feels like you're trying to get me riled up)
- schmookeeg 2y ago
  Yes, they say it to cover their asses -- for the very very rare occasion when an unbelted passenger ends up stuffed into the overhead lighting panel or carry-on baggage compartments. :) Seat belts in cars also contain several CYA-grade chimes and buzzers. The owner manual may mention risk of injury or death. Likely an airline's contract of carriage contains the same. I suspect both are read as often and as eagerly by their users. I think the multiple "off tone" messages you're getting are in response to your use of ignorance as a defense for ignoring airplane crew instructions.
  - andybak 2y ago
    > [..] in response to your use of ignorance as a defense for ignoring airplane crew instructions. Unless I come from an alternate universe - most people wear their seatbelt during take-off and landing and when the seatbelt light comes on. I wear mine through most of the flight but I only started doing this fairly recently because I learned more about turbulence. I'm not defending ignorance at all. I'm simply describing how poorly the risks are communicated and the reality that most people I've observed don't wear seatbelts for the entire duration of a flight unless the warning light comes on.
    - gilbetron 2y ago
      Nearly every flight they state that you should keep your seatbelt buckled at all times. If someone decides that they don't need to do that, it is because of their willful ignorance, sorry.
    - schmookeeg 2y ago
      If they spent the time to describe all of the rare-yet-possible ways a person could die on an airliner, the thing would never leave the gate. At some level, take their mandated-by-regulations word for it? -- these regs are written in blood, and they say to buckle your belt, not only when the sign is lighted, but also any time when seated at your seat. Boeing has done a good job of reminding us of some non-turbulence reasons to buckle up. You might also get sucked out of an unsecured exit door plug on a 737. :) I haven't heard that one mentioned in a safety brief yet. In the pilot circles I frequent, the joke about seatbelts is that it helps accident investigators more easily count the deceased among the wreckage. So there's some YOLO fuel for your next trip. This was a freak occurrence. It's sad and it sucks. The injuries to passengers were likely preventable -- less so the cabin crew. New word is that the fatality was a cardiac event -- no belt buckle helps anyone there.
etrautmann 2y ago
People are constantly bombarded with seemingly unnecessary warnings. I frequently assume that these warnings are to insulate a company from legal trouble and not really to protect me. This might be an American perspective.
- radicality 2y ago
  Something interesting I’ve seen on my recent domestic United flight, which I don’t think I’ve seen before. While the flight safety video was being played, a male flight attendant was walking through the cabin and actively telling people with headphones on (connected to their own device), to take them off and listen to the safety video. It wasn’t a recommendation though, he would wait until the person complied and would then continue down the aisle. I didn’t have any headphones on. At first it felt a little bit overboard, but with events like this turbulence happening, I can see the need for it.
- dalyons 2y ago
  See: many airlines that still warn to put your phones in airplane mode, despite that being known nonsense for decades
  - ghaff 2y ago
    It may still be a good idea because of battery but basically no one cares. Contra early days of smartphones when there near altercations with passengers responding to one last email after the doors closed.
  - miki123211 2y ago
    It's not "known nonsense", but not for the reason you think. There's a small risk of your phone connecting to some random carrier located in whatever country you're currently flying over. For some smaller / third-world countries, this can be quite expensive, cents-per-megabyte isn't unheard of.
    - avar 2y ago
      Every time this is brought up people come out of the woodworks with post-hoc rationale for this rule that has no basis in historical fact. This comment is good example. Why would the FAA and other aviation regulatory agencies care about your phone bill?

entitledas 2y ago

[flagged]

andybak 2y ago
If you read what I said it was nothing about "not following rules" - what rules did you mean? And thanks for insulting me when it seems to be an issue with your reading comprehension.
- toss1 2y ago
  Umm, I also found it to be a remarkably bad analogy. More accurate would be something like: "The chef instructor telks us every time we cook this flaming oil dish that can flame over unpredictably at any time so we should wear the welding helmet whenever possible. And I didn't bother and found it surprising." Seriously, they tell us EVERY TIME ti wear seat belts at all times when seated. They don't do it just to annoy, confuse, or mislead the passengers. The only surprising thing to me is that such deaths are not more frequent. Despite efforts to predict turbulence, the forces at play when flying 600mph are insane in relation to the human body. We need to respect that, because physics really DGAF about our opinions.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

maxerickson 2y ago

A better analogy is probably having a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. (Because instead of implying that the safety device is absurd, it implies that some people ignore the obvious)

piva00 2y ago

Do you fly over the tropics? To me it's not so uncommon to experience heavier turbulence when crossing the equator to the tropic of Capricorn, haven't experienced turbulence bad enough to see people pushed straight through the cover of the oxygen masks but I've been in a couple of flights where I experienced big drops in a split second, thankfully never seen anyone badly injured just some poor soggy bastard that was thrown around in the bathroom and people hitting their heads on the overhead bins. I just always wear my seatbelt per the flight attendants' instructions, "keep your seatbelts fastened while seated" is a recommendation in every flight I've ever taken in my life.

93po 2y ago

i do in fact wear safety glasses when frying stuff and oil is splattering but you're right that most don't

lurking_swe 2y ago

Pro tip: air travel “rules” are written in blood. There’s (usually) a reason rules exist.

cafebeen 2y ago

It’s more like keeping a fire extinguisher in your kitchen. Some people may never need it, but grease fires happen often enough to plan for it.

blangk 2y ago
A fire blanket may be easier for the kitchen

bmitc 2y ago

When you're cooking, you're not thousands of feet in the air in tight quarters traveling hundreds of miles per hour through the atmosphere in a however many ton vessel filled with flammable fuel.