When it comes to safety
measures, flight attendants face tough audience
WASHINGTON
-- If the airlines' preflight safety spiel were a Broadway
show, it would have closed long ago.
Flight attendants face one tough audience when they
go through their routine about emergency exits and seat cushions
that float -- a reaction by passengers that worries officials
who fear lifesaving information may be missed.
"It's pointless," said Drew Feldman, of Wilkes-Barre,
Pa., already a jaded passenger at age 17. "If you're going
to crash on a plane, you're going to die."
Actually, chances of surviving an accident are fairly
high. And interviews with survivors show that many have the
presence of mind amid the chaos of an accident to do as they
were told before takeoff.
The lectures, required since the early 1960s, often
are ignored -- by people, like Feldman, who are certain they
are doomed anyway if something goes wrong; by those who are
convinced they are safe; and by those who think they have
heard it all too many times.
To pique interest, some flight attendants are getting
downright goofy.
"We have some flight attendants who travel with ukuleles
and sing the flight safety message," said Linda Rutherford,
speaking for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines. "We have some
who do it while impersonating people like Arnold Schwarzenegger
or Elvis.
"Some sing them -- like to the theme of the 'Beverly
Hillbillies.' And we have some who have made them into a kind
of rap."
In recent years, some airlines have started showing
safety videos on small monitors above the seats. Others now
begin safety demonstrations with a reminder to listen, or
at least to stay quiet.
Officials are hard-pressed to prove that passengers
who listen are more likely to live, but it is clear the message
can sink in.
A 13-year-old girl on American Airlines Flight 1420,
which overshot the runway after landing at Little Rock, Ark.,
in June 1999 and killed 11 people, told investigators she
remembered from the briefing how to don the oxygen mask when
it dropped down.
As it turned out, the mask did not work; she escaped
through a crack in the plane as the rear of the aircraft burned.
A woman remembered from the briefing that the nearest
exit was behind her but instead walked forward toward the
light and out a hole in first class.
In all, 134 people survived.
In a 1991 collision at Los Angeles between USAir and
Skywest planes, passengers credited a special preflight briefing
for those sitting by an emergency exit with helping them get
out. The accident killed 34 people; 67 survived.
A federal study this year found 96 percent of occupants
survived domestic airplane accidents between 1983 and 2000.
Even in serious accidents -- involving fire, serious injury
and either substantial aircraft damage or destruction -- 56
percent lived.
The Federal Aviation Administration has run ads urging
passengers to heed safety demonstrations and has worked with
airlines to make the messages more effective.
Confidence in the safety of flying contributes to apathy
about the briefings as well as the safety cards left for each
passenger to look at.
"I feel comfortable on the plane," said Kevin Nesbitt,
a 38-year-old salesman from Raleigh, N.C., who has flown hundreds
of thousands of miles.
Even so, Nesbitt always counts the rows to the nearest
exit. He said he feels guilty when he doesn't pay attention
and sometimes feigns interest to set an example for less frequent
flyers.
Not every passenger needs to be coaxed to pay attention.
"I'm not one to pull out the card, but I listen and
I watch as they make their gestures," said Leslie Hankerson,
an analyst for the Education Department in Washington.
Candace Kolander, a flight attendant and a safety officer
of the Association of Flight Attendants union, cites reasons
even for veteran fliers to pay attention: Exit doors are not
in the same place on every plane, life vests don't all inflate
the same way, and the more that passengers understand about
emergency exits, floor lighting and oxygen masks, the faster
everyone can get out.
She's noticed passengers seem more attentive after an
airline crash has been in the news, but interest soon wanes.
Sometimes when her business-class passengers aren't
listening, she playfully reprimands them: "Hello? Hey, I'm
still up here."
On the Net: National Transportation Safety Board: http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/aviation.htm
