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How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

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Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#61

Post by twelve40 »

gumby wrote: 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 I find funny is that this year I got to fly newer first class (places I fly to are $1k+ economy and close to $10k first class, so normally I avoid the latter), the type where you get to sit diagonally in your own little "bunk". Despite the whole seat obviously designed for more comfort, the belt had the lap and the shoulder parts, and many times they were much more anal about having both parts buckled up. Guess that's the tradeoff! Typical economy is miserably cramped so they get less restraints to feel a bit better.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#62

Post by throwaway0a5e »

evgen wrote: post #60
bmitc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense at first glance, but it's something I'm in control of. I was even thinking of this before, because the comparison is a little mismatched. I'm 100% likely to be a passenger when I'm in any plane, whereas I'm probably >98% likely to be a driver when I'm in a car. I'm not sure why I was downvoted, because I'm just stating I'd like to understand (data/studies) instead of people's anecdotes and opinions,…

When you are in a plane there is a 100% probability that the driver will be a trained professional, while according to your stats there is less than a 2% chance that your driver will be a trained professional when you are in a car. While I have no hard stats I would also assume that a plane is much safer when something goes wrong. Why? 1) Professional 'driver' who has trained for years to handle risks and failure sce…

>If you blow a tire, run into a deer, or have a transmission failure while you are cruising down the highway at 80mph you have seconds (at most) to react and respond

When they happen all you do it move over and come to a stop. Unless you go Full Redditor(TM) and start adding a bunch of extreme control inputs none of these things are that bad. They don't require much reaction at all even if you are paralyzed by indecision it can still turn out fine since all you have to do is stop.

Blowouts are a non-event, IMO, just a flat tire with an extra audio alert.

Automatic transmissions basically don't fail in unsafe ways. Worst case you'll find some extra neutrals and make an ass out of yourself failing to merge or something. Splitting the case on a manual (like you might do if you go for 4th and somehow find 2nd, or jump a vehicle and don't mash the clutch before hitting the ground) is surprisingly uneventful from a maintaining control perspective.

Deer suck, mostly because they tend to break a bunch of expensive cosmetic bits.

Having a hood fly up on you is worse than any of the above events because you can't see. Brake failure kinda sucks too, especially with an automatic trans.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#63

Post by tialaramex »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #42
mertd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..).

Choice of weather conditions is within your control, just don't drive in terrible weather. Being a good driver does a ton to insulate you from the shenanigans of Equipment failure is basically a rounding errors but also within the driver's control since "flat tire at speed" is probably lion's share of crashes in that category.

Bad weather is certainly a factor in a lot of General Aviation accidents. VFR into IMC (Visual Flight Rules, ie you fly by looking where you're going; into Instrument Meteorological Conditions, ie you can't see very far due to low cloud or nightfall) kills a bunch of people every year. Some of those killed are IFR rated. In theory they know how to fly a plane when you can't see where you're going, but theory and practice are different.

One thing that's different between GA and driving is that you could stop driving. An hour from home, realising that the road really is too treacherous, you could pull over and walk. Up in the sky they don't have that option at a moment's notice. But one thing that's exactly the same is mission mindset - people fixate on what they intended to do until after it's far too late rather than have contingency plans.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#64

Post by [deleted] »

naniwaduni wrote: post #44
bmitc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense at first glance, but it's something I'm in control of. I was even thinking of this before, because the comparison is a little mismatched. I'm 100% likely to be a passenger when I'm in any plane, whereas I'm probably >98% likely to be a driver when I'm in a car. I'm not sure why I was downvoted, because I'm just stating I'd like to understand (data/studies) instead of people's anecdotes and opinions,…

Considering that ~half of collisions involve multiple vehicles, I suspect your feeling of being in control is a bit of an illusion.

[deleted]

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#65

Post by renewiltord »

anonAndOn wrote: post #38
Jtsummers wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

At an airline training session I attended, a man who survived a famous passenger aircraft crash advised that one should get as low as possible in their seat and put their knees up against the back of the seat in front of you, while still buckled. The passengers that died around him were killed by the heavy luggage exploding out of the overheads and breaking their necks, so it's important to have your head below the s…

Interesting, the last time I paid attention to a safety briefing, they had us put our arms folded in front of us on the seatback in front of us and then our heads against the arms.

Supposedly the call for this on the plane would be “Brace! Brace!” Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong before the world shut down.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#66

Post by borski »

jmercouris wrote: post #30
orev wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anecdotally, I've been on more planes with lots of turbulence (that without the seat belt would have been potentially damaging) than I can count on two hands. I've never been in a plane crash. :)

I imagine part of the reason people don't fly out of their seats today is, well, seatbelts, but also likely depends on the airline/pilots as well.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#67

Post by borski »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #42
mertd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..).

Choice of weather conditions is within your control, just don't drive in terrible weather. Being a good driver does a ton to insulate you from the shenanigans of Equipment failure is basically a rounding errors but also within the driver's control since "flat tire at speed" is probably lion's share of crashes in that category.

Not always within your control (pandemic notwithstanding). Sometimes you have to catch a train, commute into work, etc., and "the weather is bad" is not always a valid excuse.

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#68

Post by walrus01 »

sklargh wrote: post #2

Recent failures by Boeing aside, the amount of thought that goes into the holistic safety of commercial aircraft is astounding. It kind of blows my mind how hardened a typical passenger cabin is to fire, not to mention other hazards.

If you look at the gory history of all the jet aviation disasters of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and read the wikipedia pages for the major events, all of those have contributed to the design decisions that resulted in a modern airliner like a 787 or A350.

The DC-10 for instance...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10#Accide...

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#69

Post by nradov »

zipiridu wrote: post #16
ceejayoz wrote: 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…

In many years the US commercial airlines have literally zero fatalities. You're more likely to die by falling in the shower.

https://www.airlines.org/dataset/safety-record-of-u-s-air-ca...

Re: How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

#70

Post by actually_a_dog »

Here's a not so fun fact: seat belts do cause internal injuries, though infrequently. Here is a case study of two instances: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4818312/

That does not change the fact that seat belts save lives, however: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/occupant-protectio...

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