Every airline passenger is aware of flight attendants give crucial security steerage throughout their pre-takeoff briefings about seatbelts and emergency exits. But many observant passengers typically watch cabin crew all through the flight for unstated security cues, too.
If you’re considered one of these watchful fliers, you might need observed a sure means that cabin crew sit throughout takeoff and touchdown: on their palms. If you are a nervous—or just curious—flier, you is perhaps questioning why flight attendants sit on this peculiar means; whether or not it signifies a possible emergency; or if passengers ought to comply with swimsuit.
Fortunately, nervous fliers don’t want to fret after they see this, because it’s commonplace working process for cabin crew that applies to each flight. “In aviation, we call this position the ‘brace position’ for flight attendants,” says Lia Ocampo, a former flight attendant and the creator of the memoir Life, Love, and Lessons in the Sky. Brace positions are a security protocol that flight attendants comply with in case of accidents and sudden emergencies.
Assuming a brace place means strategically positioning components of the physique similar to the top and arms, by flexing, bending, and leaning ahead to assist cut back any potential impacts that will happen. “The brace position for flight attendants depends on the direction their seats face, and the type of restraint system those seats are equipped with,” Ocampo says.
One of the commonest brace positions includes flight attendants sitting on their palms to maintain the arms secured to the physique. “During the critical phases of flight, which are takeoff and landing, you see flight attendants sitting on their jumpseats in a brace position,” Ocampo says. “If passengers see flight attendants do this, it means they are doing the right thing and fulfilling their role in ensuring safety.”
This is not the one means flight attendants guarantee security during takeoff. While seated on their palms, cabin crew additionally conduct a silent overview, or go over a psychological guidelines of key security parts that is perhaps wanted throughout crucial flight phases, based on Ocampo. These embody reviewing the places of the emergency exits and the right way to function them, figuring out passengers who may probably help crew in an emergency, going over the instructions to make use of throughout an emergency, and checking the placement of different evacuation tools that might be wanted in case of emergency.
Although fliers don’t essentially want to take a seat on their palms throughout takeoff and touchdown, there are conditions when passengers is perhaps instructed to undertake a brace place to mitigate possibilities of accidents. Information on the proper place may be discovered on the protection card within the seatback pocket, which passengers ought to at all times learn earlier than takeoff. “In a planned emergency, flight attendants will brief passengers on what to do, including brace-for-impact positions,” says Ocampo. ‘However, during an unplanned emergency, they may not have time to do so.”
Reading the safety card every time you board a plane, as well as listening to the crew’s security briefing, might help guarantee fliers are ready for an surprising emergency. Flight attendants are extremely educated safety professionals who know the right way to react in an emergency, and passengers ought to at all times pay shut consideration when they’re talking about security issues.
Even frequent fliers ought to pay attention intently to each security briefing, as there could possibly be new info, relying on the kind of plane or cabin class. “Traveling today has its challenges and setbacks,” Ocampo says. “But if we travel prepared and with a positive mindset, we can overcome some of those challenges and make our journey safer and more enjoyable.”