Alaska, Japan airline incidents highlight importance of safety demonstrations

You trudge down the aisle to your seat. He checks twice or thrice to make sure you’ve arrived at the correct line. I load my luggage into the overhead bin and slide past my passenger to take my seat.

My job is done. The stressful boarding process has now been completed. You zone out.

Don’t worry if the flight attendant starts a pre-flight safety demonstration or a video starts playing explaining emergency procedures. it’s okay. We’ve seen this before.

“Attention levels during safety demonstrations are very low,” said Sarah Nelson, president of the Flight Attendants Association CWA, which represents flight attendants. united, alaska, frontier, Hawaiian others.

There is much to learn from recent aviation accidents, two of which occurred in the first week of this year. For some of them, it’s time to start paying attention to pre-takeoff safety demonstrations.

On January 2, a Japan Airlines Airbus 350-900 collided with a Japan Coast Guard aircraft carrying earthquake relief supplies at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, killing five crew members, and then passengers were removed from the burning aircraft. All 379 people on board escaped.

Then, on January 5th, Alaska Airlines’ door plug blew. boeing The 737 Max 9 sent oxygen masks to passengers while the two-month-old plane was flying at 16,000 feet, leaving a gaping hole in the 26th row. There were no serious injuries on the flight back to Portland, Oregon.

Both disasters highlight the importance of travelers paying attention to flight attendant safety information and instructions before and during an incident.

Everyone from passengers to onlookers to airline executives praised the Japan Airlines and Alaska Airlines crews who guided the passengers safely.

It goes without saying that air travel is incredibly safe. In 2023, there will be no fatalities caused by commercial airliner crashes. safest year On record.

However, that track record is primarily due to safety regulations and protocols. And during the first few minutes of the flight, when the doors close and safety procedures are explained, there are plenty of distractions: streaming entertainment, emails and text messages, and even gate-to-gate Wi-Fi. .

But Nelson said passengers weren’t paying much attention even before the smartphone era.

A bigger problem, she said, is that airlines have been reducing the number of flight attendants over the years while increasing the number of seats on each plane.

“Previously newspapers, books and conversations were distractions, but this is not just about telephones, but if more flight attendants were directly in front of you, more people would pay attention. I think it has,” she said.

Airlines are getting creative with how they get travelers’ attention during safety briefings.

Some people choose to pause the entertainment on their seatback screens during important announcements. To balance out the oft-repeated oxygen mask and life vest tutorials, some companies have introduced eye-catching effects to their video presentations.

“The F.A.A.A. airline required The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it “requires the provision of a preflight safety briefing on what to do in the event of an emergency,” adding, “The briefing must include specific information; “The FAA does not dictate to airlines how to present the information.”

The question of whether to listen to safety instructions is followed by the obvious question of whether to follow them.

Japan Airlines’ hellish situation took 18 minutes to evacuate, but a passenger misplaced his carry-on bag, allowing for a faster evacuation and avoiding a fatality. The airline’s safety instructions had a clear animation about why travelers shouldn’t bring luggage with them during the evacuation, which seemed to help.

In 2016, american airlines Flight 383 aborted takeoff due to engine failure and a fire broke out at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.National Transportation Safety Board found Some passengers brought their carry-on baggage with them even though they were told to leave their luggage behind during the emergency evacuation.

U.S. Department of Transportation Oversight Agency Said In 2020, we found 12 reports of evacuations from aircraft from 2008 to 2018 in which flight attendants said passengers evacuated or attempted to evacuate with carry-on baggage.

It is also best for passengers to follow seatbelt signs and strap them on when seated, even if the sign is off, as directed by flight attendants.

upon On Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, the plane had not reached cruising altitude when the door plug panel was blown off, meaning the passengers were probably seated and belted, not walking around the cabin, and the flight attendants Drink service had not even started. That may have helped prevent injury. The force of the event was so violent that parts of the plane’s headrests and seatbacks were torn off, according to the initial findings of the federal investigation.