This blog is about air traffic management. But, by the nature of our business, we tend to travel more than the average citizen and the pilots among us spend half their life strapped to the aircraft that carry us around. So it is appropriate to say something for once as a passenger rather than the ATM expert I often claim to be.
I am one of those passengers who actually follows the safety briefing, checks the location of the emergency exits and who has actually studied the operation of the damn things. I would hate having to read the opening instructions with smoke filling the cabin… I never take off my shoes until we are at cruising level. And yes, I do check that my life vest is under my seat and yes, I did find an empty container once and complained before we were airborne.
Recently however I started missing something from the safety briefing. If you look at the statistics, the likelihood of needing my life vest is distinctly lower than the need to know what I should do in case the chap or gal sitting next to me turns out to have explosives in his or her pants and decides to use it too.
It is a fallacy to believe that governments anywhere will be able to implement a security system that will always prevent one of these human firecrackers from getting on board. As they say, security experts are always fighting the last war and terrorist are always one ahead…
We as passengers should not act like victims. We should all feel part of the system. The last line of defense if you like.
True, in many cases recently passengers have averted disaster or changed the course of events with their heroic intervention. The crashed United
Airlines flight on 9/11, the shoe bomber Richard Reid tied with headset cords, and most recently the Delta flight to Detroit are just a few examples of spontaneous action by passengers and crew which saved the day or at least avoided an even greater catastrophe.
But in exactly the same way authorities do not leave anything to chance when an aircraft needs to be evacuated (hence the safety briefing) they should not leave anything to chance and spontaneous action when a terrorist strikes. You may or may not have the likes of Jasper Schuringa on board next time fire erupts from the seat behind you.
I realize why airlines might be reluctant to introduce some items on fighting terrorists on board into the safety briefing… But then the safety briefing, however nicely phrased it may be, is a message for those who can still move after a crash and we all got used to it and have learned not to think in such terms It is all for our safety…
Well, so would be a few words about what to do in case of a fire on board, what to do if your fellow passenger starts to act strange… The experts should figure out the best words to use and the most useful suggestions to include but something needs to be added to reflect the statistics.
Keeping my shoes on and checking my life vest feels more and more inadequate every day…
