Airline safety

[davidvel]

A Lot of People Wore Their Oxygen Masks Wrong During the Southwest Emergency Landing
By Thom Patterson/CNN/ Health/ cnn.com


"(CNN)Should you ever find yourself flying in a crippled airliner with an open window at 30,000 feet, knowing how to operate your oxygen mask could be vital.

But many passengers aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 on Tuesday appeared to be doing it wrong, social media posts show, despite instructions delivered for years by flight attendants before every takeoff.
Video taken during the flight and posted by Marty Martinez, for instance, shows passengers clearly weren't putting their noses inside the mask, even though that's a key part of the pre-flight tutorial.

Why's it a big deal? Well, there's less oxygen in the air above 10,000 feet. And without enough oxygen, people risk developing hypoxia. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, tunnel vision and nausea.

Airline and hospital officials haven't said whether anyone experienced hypoxia when the flight -- en route from New York to Dallas with 144 passengers and five crew members -- lost pressurization after part of the Boeing 737-700's engine shot through a cabin window.

The masks deployed as the pressurized air rushed outside the jet. One woman died of injuries she suffered after she was nearly sucked out a window. Seven others were treated for minor injuries, though it's not clear whether any happened because the passengers wore their masks wrong...."

Some passengers appeared to be wear their masks wrong.


Richard

Yes, this is an important point. It took about 5-6 minutes to get to an altitude where people could breathe (relatively) normally without supplemental oxygen.

That being said, being able to breathe the generated oxygen from the mask just through your mouth would be fine for most people, so a bit of false chastising here by the press/social media, as usual.

 

[taterhed]

Let's see...hmmm from memory only:

'In the event oxygen is needed, a mask will drop from the compartment above you. Pull down the mask firmly, to activate the flow of oxygen. Place the mask over your nose and mouth and breath normally. The bag may not inflate even though oxygen is flowing. Please secure your own mask before helping others.'

or something like that.

Ever watch how many people are doing ANYTHING but listening to the safety brief? Suddenly though, when the excrement hits the oscillator.....well, you know the rest.
If you're ever unlucky enough to find yourself crawling/walking out of an airplane, in the dark or full of smoke, you'll wish you'd taken the safety advice to heart and located your nearest 2 exits in the event of an emergency....

sorry, off the soapbox.

 

[klpca]

I think that in a stressful time, people don't always think clearly. That mask looks like it goes over your mouth because of the shape and some people didn't realize that it could be squeezed to cover your nose at the same time. Maybe a lot of people did it right and the media is focusing of the ones who got it wrong. Maybe this will help others remember what the *wrong way* looks like and help them remember how to do it correctly if the same thing happens to them. I am going to give the folks who went through this experience a pass. They all lived so I guess they got enough oxygen.