Flying the Truthful Skies

Sometimes the truth can be so funny. A recent article in the Economist deconstructs the typical airplane announcements and lays them out honestly.

Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.

I've always thought those "floatation devices" on the plane seats seemed rather un-seaworthy. I guess it's because the passengers are screwed if they make an emergency landing over water. It makes sense if you think about it -- a plane is several tons of metal and passengers -- under what kind of condition would such a heavy object float?

Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft's navigation systems. At least, that's what you've always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn't sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate.

When I first started flying between Long Beach and Oakland for school, I remember seeing AirPhones on planes. I even saw people using them once in a while, but I remember they were quite expensive -- about two dollars for the first five minutes, and .25 cents thereafter. As cellphones got more popular, these AirPhones started disappearing, and the public service announcements about turning off cellphones and pagers started becoming part of the norm. I've forgotten to turn off my cellphone before flying and as far as I can tell, any interference that the cellphone makes on the instruments onboard is minimal at best.