French passenger jet gone missing from radar screens........

[youngsyr]

asbo said:

youngsyr said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

No.
No.
No.
Agreed. A horrible scenario.

In my extremely amateurish opinion/imagination, it seems to me that any situation that would require a parachute is likely to happen so quickly that you wouldn't have time to put one on, i.e. you'd be outside of the aircraft, and possibly unconscious from lack of oxygen, before you realised what had happened.

Without wishing to get too graphic; how long can a person remain conscious when exposed to a sudden loss of oxygen such as that likely to have occured in this tradgedy?

I recently read in "Bad Science" that it can be as little as 10-15 seconds, obviously depending on altitude and the state of the person doing the breathing. That is why you're advised to put your mask on before helping others.

Worryingly enough it seems from the Lockerbie page on Wikipedia (and from memory similar discussions of shuttle disasters) that it's possible to pass out at high altitude but come back to consciousness as you fall to lower more oxygen rich altitudes.

Not nice.

[F i F]

youngsyr said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

No.
No.
No.
Agreed. A horrible scenario.

In my extremely amateurish opinion/imagination, it seems to me that any situation that would require a parachute is likely to happen so quickly that you wouldn't have time to put one on, i.e. you'd be outside of the aircraft, and possibly unconscious from lack of oxygen, before you realised what had happened.

Think of another similar situation. North Sea chopper services to the rigs. There you have a few passengers, fully kitted out in immersion suits, "well" trained in emergency and evacuation procedures including underwater exits. Then scale that up but without the training and as pointed out, huge range of ages, fitness, mobility, understanding or not of instructions in whatever language being used etc etc. Just doesn't bear thinking about frankly.

[Ayahuasca]

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Individual parachutes are not an option. But say huge ones attached to the aircraft (some very light aircraft already do this.

[asbo]

Ayahuasca said:

Individual parachutes are not an option. But say huge ones attached to the aircraft (some very light aircraft already do this.

Not much use if the air frame containing the parachute detaches from the passenger compartment though is it?

[Legend83]

asbo said:

Ayahuasca said:

Individual parachutes are not an option. But say huge ones attached to the aircraft (some very light aircraft already do this.

Not much use if the air frame containing the parachute detaches from the passenger compartment though is it?

How heavy is the average passenger carrier?

[SoapyShowerBoy]

asbo said:

Ayahuasca said:

Individual parachutes are not an option. But say huge ones attached to the aircraft (some very light aircraft already do this.

Not much use if the air frame containing the parachute detaches from the passenger compartment though is it?

And you are in the middle of lighting storm and 200kmh upcurrents(?)and below you is the Atlantic ocean.

[revrange]

See the French have got the same guy who did the concorde investigation in to do this one. Wasn't there a cover up on concorde crash?

[DOOG]

Ayahuasca said:

Individual parachutes are not an option. But say huge ones attached to the aircraft (some very light aircraft already do this.

Wouldn't have helped here if the plane broke up mid air...

Unless you were hanging onto the piece of wreckage that contained the chute....

[anonymous-user]

escargot said:

asbo said:

youngsyr said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

No.
No.
No.
Agreed. A horrible scenario.

In my extremely amateurish opinion/imagination, it seems to me that any situation that would require a parachute is likely to happen so quickly that you wouldn't have time to put one on, i.e. you'd be outside of the aircraft, and possibly unconscious from lack of oxygen, before you realised what had happened.

Without wishing to get too graphic; how long can a person remain conscious when exposed to a sudden loss of oxygen such as that likely to have occured in this tradgedy?

How long can you hold your breath for?

The time of useful consciousness at 35,000ft is 30-60 seconds depending on age fitness etc.

After that time you are becoming incapable of clear thinking without oxygen. You'd be unconscious probably about 3 mins after that. If the decompression was rapid or explosive it might be less as the air may be forced from your lungs when they equalised with the outside of the cabin.

[youngsyr]

F i F said:

youngsyr said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

No.
No.
No.
Agreed. A horrible scenario.

In my extremely amateurish opinion/imagination, it seems to me that any situation that would require a parachute is likely to happen so quickly that you wouldn't have time to put one on, i.e. you'd be outside of the aircraft, and possibly unconscious from lack of oxygen, before you realised what had happened.

Think of another similar situation. North Sea chopper services to the rigs. There you have a few passengers, fully kitted out in immersion suits, "well" trained in emergency and evacuation procedures including underwater exits. Then scale that up but without the training and as pointed out, huge range of ages, fitness, mobility, understanding or not of instructions in whatever language being used etc etc. Just doesn't bear thinking about frankly.

I don't disagree, it's just that in my limited imagination I can't see a situation where you would need a parachute and would even have the time to worry about putting it on and the chaos that would cause amongst the average jetliner passengers.

From the little I've seen about plane break ups at altitude, it would seem that they tend to happen in fractions of a second and leave those passengers still in the cabin in a position where it would be impossible to put on a parachute and leave the cabin even if there was one sitting on the seat next to them and they were the only person on board.

Edited to give a bit more background to where I'm coming from in writing the above:

According to the never-wrong Wiki, although a lot of the passengers on board the Lockerbie Pan Am plane showed signs of surviving the initial explosion, a lot of them were naked after the cabin came apart and the hurricane force winds the passengers were then exposed to ripped their clothes off. Obviously trying to put on even a simple device in those circumstances would be impossible. Also from that source of invariable truth comes the information that only after a few seconds the wreckage of the plane was spread over a nautical mile.

Edited by youngsyr on Tuesday 2nd June 14:51

[hman]

Tragic news as I doubt there will be any survivors.

[AshVX220]

Eric Mc said:

insurance_jon said:

Probably one for eric, but wouldn't the american Sosus network have picked up the point of impact with the water?

No idea what Sousus is - a satellite system?

I think the authorities had a very good idea where the plane went down. They had a last known position and the final automatic broadcast at the point in time the aircraft went down. It wouldn't take much to work out the likely crash location.

The difficulty in pinpointing it exactly has been down to the appalling weather and the fact that, being an ocean crash, current, winds and tides will have shifted the floating debris field from the original impact point.

SOSUS is a network of passive sonar sensors that were placed by the US/UK during the cold war, to detect soviet subs as they entered the Atlantic.
They run from Scotland to Iceland to Greenland, and would probably not detect something so far away.
There's also a SOSUS network in the North Pacific, so again, too far away to detect anything like this unfortunately.

[Podie]

Several studies have been conducted in the past on passenger behaviour in simulated crash situations. Bearing in mind these people know they are safe at the time, it's hard to gauge a true reaction.

However, when given a substantial financial incentive to get off the plane first the results were staggering. People would push and shove, people would get trapped in their seats as people went over the top and broke seats, others were kicked and punched - hell one was even bitten.

Human behaviour is, at times, mind boggling...

[Ayahuasca]

Someone has patented aan airliner 'survival capsule'

patent said:

Airliner life protection module Document Type and Number:United States Patent 6213427
Abstract:A self-contained airliner passenger safety module. A module is preferably made of a lightweight material, such as fiberglass, capable of absorbing at least some of the energy generated when an airliner inadvertently impacts with the ground. Passenger seat bases are molded into the module and are provided with slots through which passenger safety belts are passed; thus, a passenger is belted directly to each module. Each seat back is further provided with a deployable safety member, such as an airbag. A module is also equipped with electricity, water, air conditioning, and a fire extinguisher at each end. A module is also provided with sealable doorways. The number of modules to be used in a given airliner is governed by the size and type of airliner in which the modules are to be placed. The modules are designed to be positioned in the interior of an airliner fuselage. They are secured to the floor of a fuselage with a series of graduated shear pins and anti-vibration hold down pins. In the event of an inadvertent airliner impact, the shear pins and hold down pins shear as the fuselage disintegrates and the airbags deploy. The energy vector changes caused by the impact permit the modules to be deployed away from the airliner, thereby increasing the chance of survival by the module's occupants.

Re the speculation about a collision with a drug-running plane - they normally fly at much low altitudes.

[hman]

to avoid the radar

[youngsyr]

Podie said:

Several studies have been conducted in the past on passenger behaviour in simulated crash situations. Bearing in mind these people know they are safe at the time, it's hard to gauge a true reaction.

However, when given a substantial financial incentive to get off the plane first the results were staggering. People would push and shove, people would get trapped in their seats as people went over the top and broke seats, others were kicked and punched - hell one was even bitten.

Human behaviour is, at times, mind boggling...

I'm not sure that's really relevant to the whole parachute debate as those studies were for obvious reasons carried out with the plane stationary on the ground and in one piece.

As I said above, I can't imagine a situation where you'd need a parachute and could put one on even if you had one within reach and were the only person on the plane. It's not as if plane break ups happen with any warning, they seem to be over before you know it's even happened.

Even if you could get one on you've then got to get out of the cabin (or what's left of it), again not easy if the plane isn't perfectly straight and level or you happen to have a convenient hole next to you and have somehow managed to get your parachute on before passing out.

All very morbid I know, but I tend to fly long haul several times per year and these things tend to cross your mind at least once during a 13 hour flight!

I've even toyed with the idea of not putting an oxygen mask on should the worst clearly be happening so as not to prolong the agony.

Edited by youngsyr on Tuesday 2nd June 15:00

[johnfm]

Ayahuasca said:

Eric Mc said:

Legend83 said:

Eric Mc said:

Imagine the jam at the doors. It's hard enough getting out at the terminal gate.

But seriously, why a life jacket and not a parachute? What is the point of a life jacket if you hit the water like a rock hitting the pavement?

And let's face it - I doubt passengers would know how to use one any more than they would know how to use a life jacket!

Have you ever worn a parachute?
Have you ever had to put one on?
Have you read of the difficulties experienced by bomber crews as they struggled to get out of striken B-17s or Lancasters in WW2?

Imagine 350 untrained, scared passengers ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years of age all trying to cope with parachutes in an aircraft upside down or tumbling, possibly breaking up diving towards the ocean.
Just not a credible scenario, is it?

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 2nd June 14:16

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Individual parachutes are not an option. But say huge ones attached to the aircraft (some very light aircraft already do this.

Many many thousands of people fy every hour of every day.

Sadly, accidents happen. There is a limit ot how safe these activities can be made. Ultimatley, you need to accept that all activities carry risk. Flying is still MUCH MUCH safer than driving to the airpot to catch your flight.

Sympathies to all those with friends/family on the flight.

[Podie]

youngsyr said:

Podie said:

Several studies have been conducted in the past on passenger behaviour in simulated crash situations. Bearing in mind these people know they are safe at the time, it's hard to gauge a true reaction.

However, when given a substantial financial incentive to get off the plane first the results were staggering. People would push and shove, people would get trapped in their seats as people went over the top and broke seats, others were kicked and punched - hell one was even bitten.

Human behaviour is, at times, mind boggling...

I'm not sure that's really relevant to the whole parachute debate as those studies were for obvious reasons carried out with the plane stationary on the ground and in one piece.

My point was, if people react that irrationally on the ground when they know they are safe and in experimental conditions (yeah, the ethics board forms were fun!) - imagine what happens in a real world situation, with genuine fear and terror.

Other evidence shows only those with appropriate training will do what people "expect" - as they automatically follow the training.

It is morbid though - but don't get me started on that aspect of psychology...

[adam85]

youngsyr said:

Even if you could get one on you've then got to get out of the cabin (or what's left of it), again not easy if the plane isn't perfectly straight and level or you happen to have a convenient hole next to you and have somehow managed to get your parachute on before passing out.

At 35,000 feet I'd say you would find yourself out of a broken cabin alarmingly quickly!

[Ayahuasca]

Podie said:

Several studies have been conducted in the past on passenger behaviour in simulated crash situations. Bearing in mind these people know they are safe at the time, it's hard to gauge a true reaction.

However, when given a substantial financial incentive to get off the plane first the results were staggering. People would push and shove, people would get trapped in their seats as people went over the top and broke seats, others were kicked and punched - hell one was even bitten.

Human behaviour is, at times, mind boggling...

I read somewhere that that is the case in simulation scenarios, but in real life they found that the big, fit males (who survived best in the simulations) did not survive as well in real crashes they tended to act more selflessly and did not claw their way out.