10 Ways To Survive A Plane Crash

10 Ways You Can Survive A Plane Crash
Statistically speaking, planes are one of the safest ways of getting about. Hopping
on a bus, train, boat or bike are all more likely to transport you to an early grave.
But, if you are one of the unlucky few to end up in a plane crash… here are a few
tips that would be worth remembering:
NUMBER 10: NOT TOO LOW TO THE GROUND
Hot air rises - every idiot knows that. Therefore, during a fire, the advice is always to drop
to your hands and knees and stay low to the ground. Keeping your head about 50 centimeters
from the floor should be enough to minimize the amount of deadly smoke you inhale.
But - whatever you do - don’t try this technique when trying to escape a crashed plane.
With so many people trying to get out through a narrow aisle, you crawling along on the
floor is likely to cause more problems than it solves.
You could easily be trampled, crushed or have falling luggage land on you. Not only this,
but you’d also be putting your fellow passengers at risk of tripping.
What you should do instead is stay standing, cover your mouth and nose and keep your head
down.
If you do find the aisle blocked by luggage, debris or individuals who haven’t
heeded the advice of this video, it’ll always be safer to climb over the back of the seats
than stay put and wait.
NUMBER 9: SEAT BELTS
Okay, so it’s pretty obvious and every flight attendant ever has told you to do it, but
every year, about 58 people in the US are injured during turbulence because they didn’t
wear their seatbelts.
In May 2017, an Aeroflot flight from Russia to Thailand hit intense turbulence. Unfortunately,
the seat belt sign light failed to come on, and some passengers ended up being thrown
violently from their seats.
20 people - including three babies - suffered major injuries as a result.
Worryingly, it is still legal for parents with under 2s to fly with the child sat on
their laps. But, the G-force in even a mild-to-moderate dive can multiply a child’s weight from
13kg to 65kg - no human would be able to hold onto a child in those circumstances.
One problem with plane seat belts, however, is that because they are operated differently
to car seat belts, they have been known to cause confusion.
Reports from the National Transportation Safety Board showed that some crash victims - who
didn’t have initially fatal injuries - still had their belts buckled when their bodies
were found. In other words, they were left trapped and died as a result of not being
able to unbuckle themselves.
But rather than this demonstrating that you shouldn’t wear belts - it’s more evidence
that you should listen to the safety instructions and practice using your belt in safe conditions.
NUMBER 8: DRESS FOR SURVIVAL
We all do it - travel back from two weeks sunbathing in Spain wearing shorts, sandals
and an oversized sun-hat - despite the likelihood that it’ll be cold and rainy when you touch
down on home ground.
But, aside from making you look particularly stupid, this attire could actually have serious
ramifications.
Advice from Cynthia Corbett, a safety specialist from the Federal Aviation Administration,
says that you should always make sure you’re wearing practical shoes. If you were needing
to run away from a burning plane, flip-flops wouldn’t really make that situation any
easier.
Secondly, she recommended wearing long trousers and long-sleeved shirts, which would be more
effective at protecting your skin from flames and sharp objects.
Considering that a NTSB report found 68% of fatalities in plane accidents occurred as a result
of post-crash fires - this kind of advice really could be the difference between life
and death.
NUMBER 7: NEGATIVE PANIC
Panicking during a plane crash is very understandable. Screaming, shouting, running about - these
are all things you’d probably expect. But there’s another kind of panic that sometimes
gets overlooked - but could be equally, if not more deadly: negative panic.
Negative panic is when major trauma renders an individual immobile. Despite the chaos
and imminent danger around them, people remain seated, seemingly stunned and unable to react.
This has obvious dangers. During the 1977 Dutch KLM and Pan American World Airlines
collision, 583 people lost their lives.
Investigations into the crash suggested that negative panic could have played a major part
in the deaths of some of these people. Many were alive, uninjured and mobile enough to
have exited the plane before it exploded, suggesting that they could have been mentally
paralyzed by panic.
Even aircraft crew members, with years of rigorous training and expertise, have admitted
freezing up when push came to shove and having to be assisted by co-workers.
Obviously, there’s no easy solution to this problem, other than awareness of its effects.
If you see anyone around you who appears to be suffering from negative panic, do your
best to help guide them safely out of the aircraft.
NUMBER 6: FLY IN THE RIGHT PLANE
Okay, so you might not always have that much choice with this one, but it’s still useful
information if ever you do have an option.
Flying on certain types of plane will hugely increase your likelihood of survival in the
case of a crash.
One of the most important things to remember is that size does matter. Bigger planes = safer planes.
This is because larger planes have better energy absorption, meaning that the
force of the crash is absorbed more by the plane than your skeleton.
Secondly, remember that national airlines are statistically safer than regional carriers,
with regional carriers being involved in twice as many incidents as their national counterparts.
The reason for this is that you need a greater amount of experience to be employed as a pilot
on a national airline, meaning that you’re more likely to be piloted by a newbie on a
regional plane.
Statistically, the safest plane out there is the Airbus 340, which - after a total of
18 million hours in the air, remains completely accident-free.
NUMBER 5: THE 90 SECOND RULE
Picture the scene: something has gone horribly wrong… your plane has just hurtled from
the air and crash-landed on the runway. You’re a bit shaken up, but pretty much ok. You’ve
survived.
But don’t get too complacent just yet. In the majority of plane crashes, it’s not
the impact itself that kills people - it’s the fire that typically engulfs the plane
afterwards.
This it’s why it is so imperative to get off the plane as quickly as you can, because
it’s absolutely staggering how quickly a fire can consume an entire airplane. It takes,
on average, 90 seconds for a fire to burn through the plane’s aluminum fuselage.

So that should be your target… get out within that 90 seconds and your chance of survival
should multiply.
In 2013, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash-landed on the runway in South Korea. 3 people were
killed in the crash but 304 were able to escape before flames engulfed the plane. Investigators
credited the 99% survival rate to the rapid reactions of crew and passengers.
NUMBER 4: HAND LUGGAGE
This next fact links back to this idea of the 90 second rule - don’t waste time collecting
your hand luggage.
The risks of this are obvious. While you try to retrieve your brand-new Macbook or Louis
Vuitton handbag, you’re blocking the aisle and stopping others getting off the plane
quickly and safely.
In September 2015, an unnoticed engine fault led to a British Airways plane bursting into
flames on a runway in Las Vegas. The 170 people on board had to be evacuated and 14 people
ended up in hospital with serious injuries.
Photos from the incident caused uproar on social media, due to the vast number of passengers
pictured clutching their belongings.
The photos showed people holding purses, shoes and even sizable rolling suitcases, which
Tweeters described as ‘disgusting’ and ‘selfish’. Some even called for those
involved to be arrested.
Thankfully, everyone who was injured eventually recovered, but the FAA warns that the impact
of these passengers’ actions could have been much, much worse.
Airplanes are insured to help you replace your belongings in the case of a disaster.
It’s a lot more tricky to replace a human life.
NUMBER 3: OXYGEN MASKS
The dangers of a cabin losing pressure as high as 10km in the air can almost immediately
be deadly. Even just a few seconds of oxygen deprivation can be enough to cause severe
mental impairment.
Passenger studies conducted by the FAA indicate that most people think that, in an event that
leads to oxygen masks dropping from above, you could survive up to an hour before you’d
need to put it on.
This is most definitely not true. If you’re on a plane and the masks drop, put it on immediately.
Even if the cabin pressure is still stable - you don’t know what problem has caused
the masks to drop, and there could be a risk of it destabilizing at any moment.
Passenger oxygen masks typically provide enough air to last between 12 and 20 minutes, which
should be plenty of time for the pilot to get you to a safe altitude so the masks aren’t
necessary anymore.
What’s more, make sure you secure your own mask before helping others with theirs. You’re
not much use to those around you if your brain’s been starved of oxygen.
NUMBER 2: WHERE YOU SIT
You would kind of hope that every passenger has as much chance of surviving as each other,
but sadly this isn’t the case. Where you sit on the plane affects how likely you are
to receive fatal injuries.
It used to be thought that the seats over the wing were the safest - due to the idea
that the plane is ‘strongest’ there. But this has been disputed by a number of studies.
For example, in 2007 Popular Mechanics analyzed all crashes after 1971 to see how fatality
rates differed based on where passengers were sat.
They found that those sat in the rear seats were most likely to survive - with a 69% survival
rate. 56% of people over the wing survived, compared to 49% at the front.
And that’s just how seating affects your chances of surviving the initial impact…
it’s also important to be sat in the right place to help you get out of the plane alive.
A University of Greenwich study looked into the accounts of 2,000 survivors from 105 airline
incidents from around the world. They found that those sat within 6 rows of an exit were
much more likely to escape the plane and survive.
They also found that those sat in an aisle seat were more likely to escape quicker, although
this difference was only marginal.
NUMBER 1: THE BRACE POSITION
There is a widespread conspiracy theory that the purpose of the brace position is not to
save lives, but to protect your teeth and make it easier to use dental records to identify
bodies.
Even grimmer still is the idea that it’s designed to break your back and neck to kill
you faster, as it’s cheaper for airlines to pay out for a wrongful death lawsuit, than
pay for long-term medical costs.
But don’t listen to the nay-sayers. Adopting the brace position is the most important thing
you can do to improve your chances of surviving a crash.
Planting your feet square on the ground reduces the chance of them flying forward and smashing
into the seats in front of you. This is handy because running away from a burning plane
is much harder to do with broken legs.
To stop your whole body lurching forwards, ensure your forearms and head are touching
the seat in front. Place your hands at the back of your head to shield from falling debris.
The 2012 Boeing 727 Crash Experiment saw a dummy-filled plane deliberately crashed into
a Mexican desert. This test showed that those passengers with seatbelts fastened and placed
in the brace position would have been the most likely to survive the crash.
Thanks for watching today’s video. Let’s hope you never have to use any of this advice.
If you found it interesting, check out Stu’s video over at Debunked, where he’s been
sorting out the facts from the fiction concerning what to do in a plane crash. Give him a subscribe
and make sure you say that Alltime 10s sent you.

10 Ways To Survive A Plane Crash

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