With all of this media coverage of plane crashes in recent times, you'd think these things are just dropping out of the skies left and right. The Hudson incident, that commuter turboprop crash in Buffalo, the Turkish Airlines crash last week. All of this got me thinking about the infamous safety lecture that you get at the begging of each flight, and a wonderful nugget of information I heard recently.
A few months ago I was flying back to Seattle on a Southwest Airlines flight. After boarding the plane and settling in they begin the safety lecture. Now I normally don't pay attention during any of this because I've heard it dozens of times before, however one thing caught my attention.
As our middle aged, slightly overweight, slightly mannish flight attendant Lisa finished yapping about seat belts, she blurted out the following: "While we don't anticipate a change in cabin pressure, in the event that it happens, an oxygen mask will drop down..."
Wait a minute Lisa! Did you just say that you aren't anticipating a change in cabin pressure? Exactly how long have you had this job. Not only do I anticipate that the cabin pressure will change, I demand that it do so. Gradually. At a predetermined rate, based on the rate of climb or descent of the aircraft. Are you trying to tell me that the laws of physics has changed?
I realize that the average person is pretty fuckin' stupid, but there's no need to dumb it down so much. I think that most of us can grasp the simple concept that the pressure can and does change, and what you're really talking about is a rapid decompression.
And if you are too stupid to understand that, then you deserve to die.
it's still always fun to poke fun of people when they don't actually know
exactly what they just said. Posted by Xelger at 3:29am on Mar/04/2009