Airplane seatbelts - Lemmy.World

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Crash survival statistics are actually quite surprising. Like, you have higher survivability odds in the back of the plane – cause everyone in front of you is your crumple zone.

Planes rarely reverse into mountains.

And the survival statistics have a lot to do with the amount of work that has been put into making the worst case “controlled descent into terrain” scenario exceptionally rare.

Planes rarely reverse into mountains.

And when they do, everyone acts all shocked and bewildered and ask me how I did it

The stats of surviving in a plane are quite high.

The stats of surviving in a plane with at least one death are very low.

Usually, if anyone dies, everyone dies.

Almost certainly true of ocean landings. But I’ve spent a lot of time in bush planes (no crashes, knock on wood). I’ve had colleagues survive crashes where others have died. Perhaps it is sample bias, or something particularly about remote crashes.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Air_Flight_6560 – two of the survivors were in the back, both working for our company. After the crash: one never returned, one just quiet quit over the next year or two.

cbc.ca/…/yellowknife-plane-crash-kills-2-people-1… – this plane crashed into our office building, killing the pilots, but the passengers all survived. I wasn’t there, but coworkers would often describe the experience inside the building.

It happens often enough that I have two examples where I’m only one degree of separation.

I had two colleagues survive a helicopter crash into a lake at full speed (calm day, no waves, pilot lost track of where the surface was) – one of my coworked was ejected out the front window of the helicopter (seatbelt was on). Didn’t even warrant a news story. But everyone survived this one, which may be a data point in your favour.

I don’t have an actual source for stats. Got anything?

First Air Flight 6560 - Wikipedia

Jesus Christ what kind of work do you do

As far as source, my ass. I heard it somewhere else (talking about commercial airliners) and it passed the smell test

Test pilot for planes put together by drunks.

At the time, arctic mineral exploration. However I blew out my knee and started a business with lower personal risk (equipment targeting the same market) ;)

Free photo – me doing science in the arctic in winter (February, so the sun is up) with curious caribou checking it out

Damn, that sounds super cool! Need a hand? 😄😄

Kind of. My own business will probably needs to hire a tech sometime in the next six months. Ideally someone technically inclined with a steady hand (who can be trained to solder connectors onto cables, etc.)

Oh, the arctic exploration stuff? My old employer is Aurora Geoscience – they have a careers page. There are others like them, depending on your citizenship and location. Many of these companies will hire labourers and semi-skilled technicians who want the lifestyle. You won’t get paid a lot – but it’s kind of like the military experience without the guns and you come out knowing how to do a lot of shit. A good life experience. :)

I wish I had known about that when I was younger. I would have done that instead of the military.

No, people die on planes all the time. Almost 3 million people fly daily, I’m guessing people die in flight almost every day due to natural causes.

However, I’m sure the stats with 2+ people dying, survival odds are quite low.

Honestly I wasn’t going to bother specifying this but yes obviously you’re correct. Alternatively it can be thought of as, “in a plane accident, if anyone dies, usually everyone dies”
Fair enough, I just figured since we were being particular, better specify lol
It’s like in poker, show one, show all
I think this every time I’m the back which is loud because of the engines.

I'm sensitive to noise, and usually book late enough that the only seats available are in back. And fly at least once a month.

Absolutely decent noise cancelling headphones are available for under $70 US last time I bought some. Mine were called Q30 or something, and they were better than my Sennheisers from 2016-ish. Worth every bit. If one can afford a ticket, one can afford this one thing to make it less awful.

Yeah I rarely fly so I don’t bother.
I concur. I went high end though with Sennhauser cause I’m a nerd. Great investment.
Tell that to the people in the back of the plane on Lost 🤣

Like, you have higher survivability odds in the back of the plane

But when you’re sitting in the front during a crash the snack cart comes by one more time.

About 20 years ago I read a grim book about plane crashes. They claimed that the number 1 predictor of crash survivability on commercial craft was being a male between the ages of 20 and 50. They're apparently much better equipped to claw and climb over the other passengers on the way out.

Grim. I fly a lot and think about it at least every other trip.

Well, also that being bigger means you’re less vulnerable to smoke or toxic has inhalation, which is what kills most people.

Jump seat behind pilot for helicopters, I assume due to the supporting framework from the engines and not in blade range.

Middle of planes over the wing root - easy access to exits, crumple zone infront, not going with the tail if it hits, and strongest part of aircraft. Also right over a fuel tanks, so results vary.

You also have hugely increased survival odds with backwards seats.
But significantly increased motion sickness.
It straps you to the seat so when the plane suddenly drops 50 feet due to turbulence your dumbass doesn’t launch into the ceiling.
Yeah, and this is a much more frequent thing than crashes. I’ve been on planes multiple times when there was sudden turbulence and people without seatbelts lifted out of their seats. I don’t think any of my personal experiences resulted in someone hitting their head, but that happens. There was just video of one earlier this year.

Exactly as you describe.

That scene in the pilot episode of Lost. That's why.

Key & Peele - Turbulence - Uncensored

YouTube

Are you ready for the terries to get froggy?

youtu.be/eiWIOKKuyGE?si=27PLlihXQlsugfdL

Prepared for Terries - Key & Peele

YouTube
Imma drax them sklounst !

www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/world/…/index.html

This is the incident you are probably referring to.

One dead and at least 71 injured after severe turbulence hits Singapore Airlines flight

One passenger died and 71 people were injured when their Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore encountered severe turbulence Tuesday, throwing passengers and crew around the cabin and forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Bangkok.

CNN
Ive seen a loaded drink cart get a few inches of the floor, though that one was intense enough that even the flight attendants adopted an “oh fuck we’re about to die” face, which is comforting
Probably less of an “everyone is going to die” and more of a “everyone is going to start screaming and vomiting” look.

No, though I get what you mean, I locked eyes with this woman as my ass came off the seat and she death gripped the cart, I think she might legitimately have been momentarily worried about hitting her head on the ceiling and breaking her neck (had a friend be a hostess and she said the training absolutely mentions that)

As soon as they were touching the floor again they moved as fast as they could to their area, locked it down, and strapped in hard, and the captain yelled in Japanese over the intercom for a couple minutes before finally translating in English that we were fine, clearly freaked out

I know planes are safe but that experience at 1am over the pitch black Pacific ocean occasionally flashes back to me when I’m on planes because holy shit what the FUCK happened

The kraken almost had you…
I have observed that “very clever” people on the internet have a tendency to disregard solutions that are only partial, even if there is little to no downside to them.

Not even partial in this case. I mean, the "turbulence sending you into the ceiling" event is fully resolved here.

Anyway, just here looking for the common sense pedantic clarification, found it, so now here just to say good job.

“Oh yeah? Why should I be wearing a seatbelt in a car when it won’t even save me if we crash head-on into a semi truck at 100 kph?”
So you don’t get launched out the window and then crushed by your own car for the non-semi accidents.
So someone doesn’t have to scrape you off the road.

These days it might actually save you. Cars have gotten stupid safe in the last decade or so. I’ve seen a car smashed between two semis and the driver only had minor injuries (after they cut them out).

Crumpel zones ftw!

mmm crumpet zones
Not to be confused with crumple scones.
I skydive and people ask why a lot of us wear helmets since it’s not saving you if you hit the ground. The plane or other people can hurt you plenty.
Correct me if I’m wrong too, but if you’re coming in on a parachute and somehow hit your head during the landing, that could hurt a lot, right?
If you tumble then yes, it can help there too. It’s usually banging it on exit or turbulence or somebody coming in a little hot to a formation that I’m happy I have it. Pretty sure if you hit the rear wing even with a helmet that’s gonna cause you some issues though.
I often see that in political arguments. There’s much to be said about wasting political capital on a poor and partial solution, but as you said, people bitch even if there’s no real downside.

If you play the SNES version of Monopoly, you can play against CPU opponents. Mind you, this is artificial intelligence coded in 1992, on a cartridge with about 16mb of storage space for the entire game. Only a fraction of that is dedicated to the AI decision process.

If you propose a trade, I’ll give CPU $5 in exchange for $0, the CPU will respond with NO DEAL!!!

But if you propose "I’ll give you $100 in exchange for $0, the CPU replies “IT’S A DEAL!!!”

The CPU was holding out for a bigger handout!

Unrelated, but if you hold the B button, and don’t release, you’ll keep looping the shaking the dice animation. They use digital photo scans of a real hand/arm…if it were disembodied. And the animation looks like he’s just jacking off.

Wow, talking about NES Monopoly on a post about airplane seatbelts.

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on NES Monopoly because I used to play the game and wanted to see if I held the B button. Probably did, but I’m not sure.

Anyway, the world record speedrun of Monopoly takes advantage of the trade mechanics. Trade the CPU mortgaged properties for all of their money and they’ll lose the game because you have to pay a 10% fee on any properties traded that were mortgaged. And if you take all their money in the trade they don’t have any to pay the penalty.

You weren’t kidding.

Old-school Monopoly jerkoff is how I discovered we can upload gifs now w/o using third-party hosters.

There’s something to that animation…

SNES is worse huh?:

Oh man I haven’t seen that classic in a while. Thanks for the smile!
Also in the event of a crash you don’t become a projectile that kills someone else.
Never been on a flight never assumed I would be afraid of flying however that sounds horrific, so thanks for giving me a new fear of flying.

Can’t really let random stuff like that with a low injury profile bother you. You’d end up fearing and respecting escalators in that case.

Reminds me of the time the brakes gave out on the La Infant Plaza escalator for the D/C Metro after the Rally to Restore Sanity (a lot good that did). Everyone was piled on going down and it just gave up the ghost and accelerated at full speed to bring them all down in a pile.