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How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

airspacemag.com

21–30 of 81 posts

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those seem like odd metrics to go by.

Fatalities per hour seems like a reasonable statistic if you want to talk about fear - how likely am I to die in the next 5mn?

If my goal is "I wish to spend X hours in a form of transit", sure. If I need to get from LA to NYC, though... there's a lot more of those 5 minute periods if I'm driving.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#22
post #5

Having been once in a aircraft-damaging emergency landing* decades ago I am surprised lap only belts are still the norm. There's a reason the crew has four point restraints, and I'd like to have it too. * I won't call it a crash since the aircraft made it to an airport and to a runway. We had equipment failure in flight so there was plenty of time for the flight attendants to review our crash positions, confiscate sh…

What was it about the emergency landing that made you surprised that lap only belts are still the norm? (Apologies if I'm asking about something blindingly obvious but I've not been in an aircraft-damaging emergency landing and I'm really interested to hear more about your experience.)

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, after looking at that, and always being told that airlines are the safest. I was surprised they are only safest by that one metric (fatalities / distance) and not fatalities per trip or fatalities per hour.

Those seem like odd metrics to go by.

What you probably really want to compare flying and driving is fatalities per trip--for the same trip. As others have noted, a longer trip in a plane is almost certainly safer per mile than a shorter trip given where accidents happen. (And the effect may or may not be further magnified by the fact that I assume the accident rate is higher on small regional jets. Though, on the other hand, they carry fewer people.) On the other hand, driving is probably much more proportional to distance.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#25
post #5

Having been once in a aircraft-damaging emergency landing* decades ago I am surprised lap only belts are still the norm. There's a reason the crew has four point restraints, and I'd like to have it too. * I won't call it a crash since the aircraft made it to an airport and to a runway. We had equipment failure in flight so there was plenty of time for the flight attendants to review our crash positions, confiscate sh…

This is what most people seem to get wrong about airplane seat belts—they are not there for the same reason as in cars: crashes. They are there to keep people from flying around and getting injured during turbulence.

Crashes in commercial planes are so rare that any single one almost always makes the news, while turbulence is extremely common. Let’s be fair and say that a seatbelt is not going to make a whit of difference when colliding with the ground at 200 MPH, so a 2 or 5 point harness are essentially the same in that regard. But a belt is plenty to help with turbulence.

Will there be a few instances, such as yours, where the extra protection would have been good? Of course, but there’s also a trade-off of weight, cost, and public resistance to strapping in like a race car driver. The other mitigations seem to work well enough when there is a situation.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#26
post #22
post #5

Having been once in a aircraft-damaging emergency landing* decades ago I am surprised lap only belts are still the norm. There's a reason the crew has four point restraints, and I'd like to have it too. * I won't call it a crash since the aircraft made it to an airport and to a runway. We had equipment failure in flight so there was plenty of time for the flight attendants to review our crash positions, confiscate sh…

What was it about the emergency landing that made you surprised that lap only belts are still the norm? (Apologies if I'm asking about something blindingly obvious but I've not been in an aircraft-damaging emergency landing and I'm really interested to hear more about your experience.)

Probably what was briefly discussed in the article. So long as your seat stays anchored, a multipoint harness will keep you in position better. The injuries in the one accident were from people being moved side-to-side, not forward or up and down. The seatbelts didn't injure them, but the armrests did. A multipoint harness could (if worn properly) reduce those kinds of injuries. Of course, in a total failure where the seats become detached from the floor and the aircraft is rolling, no seatbelt or harness will save you.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#27
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The "fatalities per mile" chart is pretty astounding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#/media/File:Fa...

Hmm, after looking at that, and always being told that airlines are the safest. I was surprised they are only safest by that one metric (fatalities / distance) and not fatalities per trip or fatalities per hour.

I have personally never liked being blankly told that flying is safer than driving, because I’d like to understand how safe flying is versus driving when something goes wrong.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#29
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The "fatalities per mile" chart is pretty astounding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#/media/File:Fa...

IIRC takeoff and landing are the most dangerous parts, so I'd be more interested fatalities per trip. An intercontinental plane ride would cover more miles than I drive in a year which makes the per mile stat meaningless to me. I think it would still be in the plane's favor but probably not as significantly. And in that case if you're a safe driver (healthy adult, doesn't drink or do drugs, doesn't speed, etc) it mig…

If you are a terrible driver, you can certainly make your individual odds of accident a lot worse than the average case, but I'm not sure being a good driver improves your odds by that much. A lot of the risks are totally out of the driver's control (e.g., other road users, equipment, weather etc..).

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#30
post #25
post #5

Having been once in a aircraft-damaging emergency landing* decades ago I am surprised lap only belts are still the norm. There's a reason the crew has four point restraints, and I'd like to have it too. * I won't call it a crash since the aircraft made it to an airport and to a runway. We had equipment failure in flight so there was plenty of time for the flight attendants to review our crash positions, confiscate sh…

This is what most people seem to get wrong about airplane seat belts—they are not there for the same reason as in cars: crashes. They are there to keep people from flying around and getting injured during turbulence. Crashes in commercial planes are so rare that any single one almost always makes the news, while turbulence is extremely common. Let’s be fair and say that a seatbelt is not going to make a whit of diffe…

Turbulence that results in people flying out of their seats is exceedingly rare, like a once in a lifetime experience for a commercial pilot. Airplanes will go to great lengths to avoid bad weather to avoid stressing the airframe and making passengers uncomfortable.
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