Thursday, Sep 4, 2008
Do seat cushions actually save lives? And why don't U.S. airlines fly to Africa?
Jul 26, 2002 | OK, I admit to a certain cantankerous frustration in last week's column, but I was intentionally being ornery and had to laugh when somebody finally called me on it. The intention wasn't to mock anybody's phobias, as I was only lamenting my lack of qualifications to deal effectively with what I (callously?) called "irrational worries."
And for those of you who thought I was exercising hyperbole in my whine about pilots not making much money: Believe me, there is no shortage of pilots out there ready to offer up handfuls of humiliating W-2 forms proving the absurd wages at many airlines. In 1990, when at age 24 I was hired to fly a $3 million turboprop for the commuter affiliate of a major airline, this pilot's starting salary was $800 a month.
Meanwhile, if you've read my previous columns, even the most squeamish fliers out there might grow bored with my repeated reminders and analogies about the relative safety of flying. As a nod to those annoyed by statistical platitudes -- and being ready to indulge your morbid curiosity -- I'd like to devote an upcoming column to a discussion of past accidents and disasters. Tastefully and constructively, of course. Got a question about TWA 800, the Lockerbie bombing, pilot suicides or other infamous tragedies? Let's confront the reality that crashes sometimes occur, and perhaps a frank, full-immersion talk will quell a few of those same strange fears that so perplexed me last time.
Just prior to touchdown, our flight powered up and aborted the landing. We flew around, banking at much more severe angles than usual, approached a second time, and successfully landed. They said the airport was attempting to squeeze out too many departures. It was very unnerving. Does this happen often and do you think the airline was hiding something?
First of all, nobody was hiding anything. Second, what you experienced was something so nonthreatening that the crew had mostly likely forgotten about it by the time they'd reached the curb outside the terminal. Whether you call them aborted landings, missed approaches or go-arounds, they are nothing to sweat. Now and then, for any of various reasons, spacing between airplanes falls below the minimum requirements and a plane is required to execute the procedure you experienced. This does not, by any stretch, imply that you were close to hitting another plane.
The flying around at severe angles was nothing more than your plane maneuvering to rejoin the approach pattern. A plane being vectored back into a pattern may indeed make a few sharp turns or climb steeply to expedite its cause. Or perhaps it just seemed that way, as your nerves were already frazzled by what you perceived was a dangerous or unusual situation.
I don't like hearing that passengers are so put off by something so innocuous. Your crew owed you more than some folksy spiel about the tower trying to "squeeze out too many departures." I suspect people prefer a more professionally soothing explanation to a down-home shucks-it-was-nuthin'.
I roll my eyes each time the flight attendants go through their life-vest drill. Has anyone ever survived a water landing by donning a vest or using a seat cushion?
Please don't disrespect the cabin crew. (I'm thinking now of the Replacements song, "Waitress in the Sky.") They are forced by regulation to recite the safety briefing, and you should pay attention. My problem isn't with the safety demo itself, but the way it's presented -- a snoozer full of legalspeak and vapid redundancies like "at this time" and "in the event of."
But yes, there have been several instances where passengers have made use of their floatation devices. A recent example is the Ethiopian Airlines 767 that crashed in the Indian Ocean after a hijacking. Additionally, there have been times when aircraft have overshot, undershot, or otherwise parted company with a runway and ended up in the harbor of a coastal airport. So if you're flying from New York to Phoenix and smirk when you hear "water landing," remember that twice since the late 1980s jets went off the end of a runway at LaGuardia and ended up in the bay. There were several survivors in both cases.
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