Pay Attention and Read the Safety Information Card

What do you do when you get on an airplane? After you have stowed your carry on, sat down, and buckled up? Honestly, do you listen to the flight attendant's safety instructions? Or do you go about your own business, reading, chatting, or what not and completely tune out the person telling you where the exits are, how to use your seatbelt, and where the nearest bathroom is located? Do you read the safety information card? Have you ever read the safety information card?

Let me share with you what I do. I always listen to the flight attendant's instructions. Always! The primary reason I've always done this, and will continue to do so, is because I believe it is impolite not to. As a teacher and speaker, I know what it feels like to be presenting to a group of people and have some not listen. I've always felt it is respectful to listen to flight attendants as they do their job, especially since they are doing it for us. It is the same reason you will never catch me going through a supermarket check out talking on a cell phone and ignoring the person helping me. It's just common courtesy.

I also always pull out the safety information card and read through it. I then look around and visually note where each exit on the plane is located in relation to my seat. I also try to pay attention to who is where on the plane. What kind of people are around; men, women, elderly, kids, people who need help, or those that look in good shape. I never like being anywhere that I don't know how to get out of, and who is around me. Just a habit I guess.

Okay, so some of you are saying, "Good for you Mr. Polite Awareness guy. Here's an extra cookie to go with your coffee for being such a great airplane passenger." I never really thought of this much before, it's just what I do, and I do a lot of things other don't. However, I'm currently reading a very good book called "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes And Why" by Amanda Ripley. In this book, Ripley shares a little about people who read the safety information card.

Ripley reports on Mr. Paul Heck, a survivor of the 1977 Pan Am accident in the Canary Islands. When the plane was hit by another plane on the airstrip while waiting to take off, 326 of the 396 people on board were killed. (583 people died total when you include the passengers on the KLM aircraft that hit the Pan Am flight) Many of those who died on the Pan Am aircraft would have lived if they had gotten off the plane before smoke and fire killed them. Paul Heck, sixty-five, reacted immediately and told his wife Floy, seventy, to follow him, which snapped her out of her daze, and led her off the plane. Others sat like zombies in a state of paralysis and perished.

This passage from Ripley's excellent book provides some very important information:

"At the time of the Tenerife crash, psychologist Daniel Johnson was working on safety research for McDonnell Douglas. He became fascinated by this paralysis behavior, which had been observed in other plane crashes as well. Floy and Paul Heck are both deceased now. But a few months after the accident, Johnson interviewed them both. He made an important discovery. Before the crash, Paul had done something highly unusual. During the long delay before takeoff, heck had studied the 747's safety diagram. He even walked around the aircraft with his wife, pointing out the nearest exits. He had been in a theater fire as an eight-year-old-boy, and ever since, he had always checked for the exits in an unfamiliar environment. Maybe this is a coincidence. But it is also possible that when the planes collided, Heck's brain had the data it needed to take action."

I'm not suggesting that I will survive an aircraft disaster before anyone else, just because I read the safety information card and pay attention to the flight attendants, but evidence shows that it just might help. Personally, I'm all for stacking the deck as much in my favor as I possibly can when it comes to survival. If Heck's story doesn't convince you to pay more attention, here is another example from Ripley's "The Unthinkable."

"The National Transportation Safety Board has found that passengers who read the safety information card are less likely to get hurt in an emergency. In a plane crash at Pago Pago three years before the Tenerife accident, all but 5 of the 101 passengers died. All the survivors reported that they had read the safety information cards and listened to the briefing. They exited over the wing, while other passengers went toward other, more dangerous but traditional exits and died."

Bottom line. I want to be as prepared and safe as I can be. Not paranoid mind you, but I will stack the deck in my favor whenever I can. Keeping oneself safe is not just going to the gym to practice martial arts and self-defense skills. It's not just going to the range to practice shooting skills. It is a combination of everything one does, with situational awareness being one of the most important ingredients. I will always listen to the flight attendant's briefing, out of courtesy and to be prepared. I will always read the safety information card, even on small planes I am very familiar with. I will always look around and make note of all the exits and the other passengers on board with me. You don't have to do the same, but I seriously suggest you do. It might just be the difference between life and death.