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Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

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Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#21

Post by asmithmd1 »

mikeash wrote: post #17
asmithmd1 wrote: post #15

If an errant cigarette is enough to bring down a plane why does the TSA strip search me looking for a bomb? I bet you could get a pretty roaring fire going using the 120v outlet and all the paper goods provided in the bathroom.

Because, although it could bring down a plane, it's very likely not to. The fire will be detected quickly and then put out. Your question is sort of like asking, if an airliner can fly on one engine, why do they bother putting on two? The answer, quite simply, is robustness.

My point is that it is very unlikely anyone will try. There is exactly nothing stopping anyone from packing an airplane bathroom with alcohol soaked paper towels and lighting it on fire; and yet it has not ever happened. The TSA is a colossal waste of time and money - the more ways that it can be pointed out the better.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#23

Post by ricardobeat »

kgermino wrote: post #6

It seems to be down now. Here's the text if it continues to not work: I’ve been lucky enough to have the chance to fly a lot over the past year or so. Working with Stephen Foskett and the rest of the Tech Field Day crew means that I’ve been to California almost every month. That’s a lot of flying. One of the things that I’ve noticed on my flights is that they don’t want you to smoke. You actually used to be able to s…

CloudFlare caches seem to always fail when they are most needed.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#25

Post by Zak »

mikeash wrote: post #17
asmithmd1 wrote: post #15

If an errant cigarette is enough to bring down a plane why does the TSA strip search me looking for a bomb? I bet you could get a pretty roaring fire going using the 120v outlet and all the paper goods provided in the bathroom.

Because, although it could bring down a plane, it's very likely not to. The fire will be detected quickly and then put out. Your question is sort of like asking, if an airliner can fly on one engine, why do they bother putting on two? The answer, quite simply, is robustness.

The other reason for it is to make people feel safer about flying on planes. I think it has long outlived its usefulness for that purpose, but that may be my bias toward rationality speaking.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#26

Post by kevinchen »

kgermino wrote: post #6

It seems to be down now. Here's the text if it continues to not work: I’ve been lucky enough to have the chance to fly a lot over the past year or so. Working with Stephen Foskett and the rest of the Tech Field Day crew means that I’ve been to California almost every month. That’s a lot of flying. One of the things that I’ve noticed on my flights is that they don’t want you to smoke. You actually used to be able to s…

Google's cached version with images: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&outpu...

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#27

Post by mdda »

kgermino wrote: post #6

It seems to be down now. Here's the text if it continues to not work: I’ve been lucky enough to have the chance to fly a lot over the past year or so. Working with Stephen Foskett and the rest of the Tech Field Day crew means that I’ve been to California almost every month. That’s a lot of flying. One of the things that I’ve noticed on my flights is that they don’t want you to smoke. You actually used to be able to s…

The airlines actually save money by preventing smoking : The air in the cabins needs to be recycled less often. The flip side, though, is that air-bourne diseases are more prevalent on flights now, since the air is rebreathed more often before filtering. Source : Qi series 1 (BBC UK).

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#29

Post by Drbble »

nicholaides wrote: post #10

I was thinking about this same idea earlier today: Buses in Philadelphia have a bunch of "No Eating and Drinking" signs and consequently no trash cans. The result is that the back of the bus is covered in trash. If they had just 1 or two trash cans it would be a much more pleasant ride.

I have never seen a city bus with a trash can.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#30

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #18
brc wrote: post #5

That's interesting news to me. I did wonder why smoking paraphernalia continued to appear in planes that were covered in anti-smoking insignia. I always assumed that the bathrooms, seat etc were made in large quantities, and that there are a lot of countries in the world where you can still light up in a flight, not to mention privately owned planes. I once flew on a Japan Air Lines flight back in the '90s. At that s…

"The fire risk alone should immediately discount it." A quick Google turns up only two airline accidents possibly attributed to cigarettes (a 1982 Illyshin IL-18 crash in Guangzhou, China and a 1973 crash in France). Pretty minimal, given that smoking was allowed on millions of flights for close to 90 years.

We fly a lot more now than before deregulation, while many countries are just emerging with people who commonly commute via planes. I wouldn't be surprised if passenger miles from 1990 to 2010 were larger than 1900 to 1990. Flying used to be a high-class affair, now anyone can fly; not allowing smoking is probably a good thing in that context.

At least, here in China, people are not careful in the way they smoke, and I wouldn't get on a plane that allowed smoking. Ever see a Starbucks trashcan go up in smoke after someone was told they couldn't smoke there? Its quite funny the first couple of times, but it gets old after that.

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