A LATAM Airlines jet flew into severe turbulence high above the western Pacific on March 11. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner plunged like an overripe coconut. Although the 263 passengers and nine cabin crew members landed safely, dozens were hurt, and 13 were hospitalized. Doctors treated 10 passengers and three LATAM personnel. Several presented with bloody head wounds.
These passages from Chris Pandolfo’s account on Fox Business deserve close attention:
At least 50 people were injured Monday after a “strong shake” threw those without seatbelts from their seats and tossed around passengers on the Chilean plane traveling from Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand…
[Traveler Brian] Jokat told ABC that several passengers were not wearing their seatbelts when the plane took a dive.
“If you were in your seat, you went straight up to the ceiling and bounced off the roof. I just happened to be one of the lucky ones who was strapped in for that incident,” he said…
“The guy on the other row, he hit his head on the baggage compartment and he actually, like, broke the thing.”
Brian Jokat is wrong. He was not “one of the lucky ones.” Rather, Jokat was smart, mature, and responsible. Simply put, he behaved like an adult about his safety and that of his fellow passengers, particularly those whom his otherwise unbelted body could have injured had it hurtled through the cabin.
Airplane passengers should keep their seatbelts on, except when they get up to use the overhead compartments, wash their hands, or otherwise traverse the plane.
It is not asking too much to stay belted in one’s seat. Airline lap belts are less intrusive than automobile seat belts, which — thankfully — feature shoulder harnesses. Yet people routinely fly unbelted. This sometimes turns humans into projectiles that land on, wound, and even kill those who are belted in their seats!
I recall a recent flight in which a particularly rotund passenger sat across the aisle from me, with his belt flung thoughtlessly to the side. For a solid 30 minutes, I imagined our flight hitting turbulence, Chris Christie 2.0 ricocheting off the ceiling, and then crashing onto me like a human dumpster. If he did not kill me, he easily could have cracked my spine and condemned me permanently to a wheelchair.
Replaying that mini-horror film inside my mind became unbearable, as did that passenger’s gross negligence, which inspired it. I eventually requested that a steward ask this selfish passenger to buckle up. He did, and the skies became friendly again.
Was I being paranoid? Hardly.
“Last week, Delta Air Lines Flight 175 traveled from Milan, Italy, to Atlanta, Georgia,” Ned S. Levi wrote last Sept. 4 in Travelers United. “The Airbus A350 was about 40 miles from Atlanta when severe air turbulence injured twelve on the flight, eight passengers and four crew members. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), one crew member was seriously injured.
“Ayo Suber, a passenger on the plane, posted a video, plus an account of the turbulence incident on Instagram. She said that passengers were flying out of their seats and that one woman hit the overhead bin and cracked it. In her video, we can see the cracked overhead bin that Ms. Suber mentioned. An ice pack was held on a woman’s head, a person being assisted while walking off the plane, bandaged and wearing a neck brace, plus two people being carried off the plane on stretchers.”
Levi further reported:
- Each year, approximately 58 people in the United States are injured by turbulence while not wearing their seat belts.
- U.S. air carriers had more than 200 air turbulence accidents, resulting in 164 serious injuries, 131 to the flight crew and 33 to passengers, from 2008 through 2022.
- Since 1980, there have been three fatalities sustained from severe turbulence, two documented to be passengers who weren’t wearing their seat belts while the seat belt sign in their planes was illuminated.
If one refuses to wear a seat belt in a car, such stupidity rarely affects others. Even if an unbelted driver or passenger rides into a head-on collision and rockets through the windshield, chances are no one else would get hurt.
Airliners are completely different. There is no windshield to slow a passenger who shoots out of his seat. Nearby travelers are not shielded by glass, metal, or even safe distance.
When things go very wrong, flying unbelted is not a victimless act.
Pre-flight safety videos should include footage of what happens when planes hit heavy turbulence and passengers become airborne. If so, the millions of reckless people who spurn seat belts would strap them on, leave them on, and stop endangering themselves and — more important — other passengers who take flight safety seriously.
Flight staff should fortify their anodyne verbal requests that passengers stay belted. Why not say this?
“Even after the pilot turns off the Fasten Seat Belt signs, we very strongly urge you to remain belted when seated. Turbulence injures almost 60 airline passengers annually, mainly because they refuse to wear their belts and then get catapulted from their seats. Don’t become a statistic, or worse. Stay belted until we land.”
It also would help if Boeing and less clumsy jet manufacturers made Fasten Seat Belt signs permanent, much as No Smoking signs now stay lit. These companies should create signs that show either a passenger sitting down (Stay in your seat) or standing up (It’s OK to move about the cabin).
When today’s Fasten Seat Belt signs go dark, they suggest that passengers unbuckle. This is the wrong message. It should be: “Fasten your seat belt at all times, except when the pilot says it’s OK to get up briefly. After that, please sit down and buckle up.”
The alternative is to stay unbelted, potentially pilot one’s own personal flight through the fuselage, land uninvited on another passenger, and spend vacation not on beaches or ski runs, but in an ambulance or mortuary.
Fliers of the world unite: Wear seat belts until you return to terra firma!
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.
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