Phones on planes and how to use a seat belt

You probably think flight safety is important but find it difficult to concentrate on pre-flight safety announcements where much attention is given to how to operate the seat belt and the whole landing-on-water scenario.

For a chuckle, read this week's leader in The Economist which pokes fun at the serious subject of in-flight safety and the safety announcements' often misleading rhetoric. The article, Fear of flying - Welcome aboard is a stab at what an honest pre-flight safety announcement might be like (it is behind a pay wall, so I provide a few quotes):

"The real reason to switch [mobile phones] off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground [...] if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board"

"if [safety] were [our first priority], our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing."

"Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, [...] do not bother to look for it [...] in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero."

Some of these points were raised by Freakonomics co-author Steven D. Levitt in June. This sparked a debate on their blog, primarily about the use of electronics on aircraft and the land-on-water scenario. (I contributed a comment that I rarely go sailing without a parachute.) Yet the Wikipedia article on water landings lists six incidents of commercial aircraft ditching on water and passengers surviving.

As for the cell phone discussion, The Economist article predicts airlines' stance will change in the next few years:

"when we introduce in-flight calling [...] the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate"

[Update: JP Rangaswami wrote about the same Economist article yesterday. He mentions that it was the subject of a blog experiment by The Economist's editors and points us to Michael Seaton who shares the full text of the article. My suspicion is that somebody at the newspaper is putting together a case for lifting the pay-wall that bars non-subscribers' access to most of the content on The Economist's website but they want to measure the linking potential.]

Tags: The Economist airplane ditching water landing Freakonomics safety