The recent crash of a Delta Air Lines plane in Toronto ended with all 76 passengers hanging upside down, strapped in their seat belts. Even though the plane landed belly up and caught fire, everyone—including the four crew members—survived, though some passengers were severely injured.
It got me thinking about airplane seat belts and how they are different from the ones in our cars.
And then it brought to mind Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian who, in one of his bits, mocks the preflight safety instructions on how to operate those seat belts. “In case you haven’t been in a car since 1965,” he quips. “Oh you lift up on the buckle! I was going to tear the metal apart.”
Ha ha, Jerry, but that’s precisely why they repeat the instructions before every flight: you were in a car recently, on the way to the airport probably, and in a panic situation the first thing many passengers do is reach for a red plastic button between the seats instead of lifting up on that metal buckle like they’re instructed to do in the video.
As Edwin Galea, Ph.D, an expert in emergency evacuation dynamics, explains, “People tend to try and press a button on the seat belt because in an emergency situation they revert to normal behavior.” In many of the airline accidents he has studied, passengers struggled to release their seat belts with only seconds remaining before escape would be impossible. More than once, after a long sleepless flight even I, a seasoned airline passenger, have reached for that elusive red button—and I always watch the safety video like my life depends on it.
So let’s consider the airplane seat belt buckle. It’s designed to be immediately visible, quickly located and easily released not just by the passenger but by rescuers as well, in case you’re too dazed or injured to do it yourself.
Whereas car seat belt releases (those red plastic buttons) are tucked between seats and can be operated only by pushing down on it with a finger (usually a thumb or forefinger), airline seat belt releases are front and center on the passenger’s lap and can be operated with any part of the hand. First responders to car crashes often cut the seat belts rather than wasting precious seconds hunting for and operating the push-button releases.
Plus, imagine a row of four or five airplane seats if the seat belt releases were akin to those in a car: Is your push button on the left or the right of your seat? It’s much easier to figure out what’s what if the release is on your lap. Even if the seats are just two across like they were in that Delta plane, you or your rescuer would waste precious time not just digging for the release, perhaps in a dark and smokey cabin, but also figuring out if yours was on the right or left side of your hip.
So airline seat belts are designed the way they are for good reasons. And while there’s an argument to be made that life would be simpler if all seat belts, whether in a car or an airplane, worked the same way, that will never happen. So listen to the safety demo and maybe, just before take off and landing, release and re-insert that buckle a couple of times. Even experienced pilots perform “memory muscle” exercises like that in the cockpit—touching controls they might need in case of an emergency.
Wherever you sit on the plane, airline safety is no laughing matter.
