Aircraft life jackets

I always think, when they are announcing the safety briefing on our trains, that it will continue with "and your life jacket can be found under your seat".
 
I remember being on a boat trip in West Australia, when the skipper giving the fairly light-hearted safety briefing said, "and if the boat sinks, grab your life jacket from under your seat, and hold it up in the air". The water was only about a couple of feet deep!
 
Passenger jets do not typically make sucessful water landings. The typical result is either that everyone dies, or the aircraft comes to rest in very shallow water where life jackets are not relevant. There are a few exceptions:

The "miracle on the Hudson". Passengers evacuated in life jackets, and some passengers entered the water by choice rather than waiting on the rafts, but hard to say that any lives were saved by the lifejackets.
Ethiopia Airlines Flight 961. This was an unsuccessful water landing, but with survivors. Many of the deaths were blamed on the life jackets. This is why the safety warnings now say "Don't inflate your life jacket until you are exiting the plane". People were in the water with life jackets, so likely some lives were saved by the jackets, but unlikely more than were killed by life jackets inside the plane.
ALM Flight 980. Out of 63 passengers and crew, 40 survived the crash and were in the water for up to three hours. There was only one exit slide deployed as a raft, so the life jackets probably played a role.
https://www.quora.com/How-many-live...s-due-to-the-presence-of-life-vests-in-planes
The page does not mention the Washington crash, in which I think six survived to exit the aircraft, one of whom subsequenty died. It's not clear whether any wore inflated life-vests, although a rescue heicopter dropped a number to survivors in the water. The only surviving crew member also passed "the only one she could find" to another survivor.

A quick Google reveals that some airlines no longer supply life-vests. Passengers are told to use seat cushions, instead.
 
macd said:
[I

The "miracle on the Hudson". Passengers evacuated in life jackets, and some passengers entered the water by choice rather than waiting on the rafts, but hard to say that any lives were saved by the lifejackets.
/QUOTE]

No, the WSJ article says...
"They are so difficult to find under seats and put on securely in an emergency that only 33 passengers of 150 aboard US Airways Flight 1549 had a life vest after the plane splashed down in the Hudson River in 2009. Only four people managed to properly don their life vest, securing the waist strap so it wouldn’t pop off."
Click to expand...
 
That's because there was so little time. In a preplanned ditching there would be time for the passengers and crew to don lifejackets. It's still the only successful ditching I know about. The Washington one was a crash not a ditching.
Great animation here of the Hudson event.
 
NormanS said:
I remember being on a boat trip in West Australia, when the skipper giving the fairly light-hearted safety briefing said, "and if the boat sinks, grab your life jacket from under your seat, and hold it up in the air". The water was only about a couple of feet deep!
Click to expand...

I did a charter trip on the French canals a few years ago. The guy doing the handover said that in the event of the boat sinking we should collect at least one mobile phone and plenty of beer, then take the patio chairs onto the roof of the boat, phone the office, and drink the beer while waiting for them to arrive :)

(We discovered after a couple of days that the boat was in fact leaking quite freely through a crack in the hull, but the auto bilge pump seemed to be coping...)

Pete
 
Probably because I'm ex-aircrew but on any airliner I travel on I instinctively reach under the seat to check the life-jacket is there and I can locate the tab to pull it out. Once, got the crew on an Easyjet flight running around to find the LJ missing from under my seat before take off

They found it rolling around on the floor 7 rows away!
 
I have always thought a LJ on an aircraft about as useful as a seat belt on a motorcycle. In fact I have also always thought that the 'brace position' is as close as you can get to kissing your arse goodbye.
 
No, the WSJ article says...
"They are so difficult to find under seats and put on securely in an emergency that only 33 passengers of 150 aboard US Airways Flight 1549 had a life vest after the plane splashed down in the Hudson River in 2009. Only four people managed to properly don their life vest, securing the waist strap so it wouldn’t pop off."
Click to expand...

Or is that because as on most flights the majority of passengers couldn't be bothered to listen to the safety brief/thought it didn't apply to them/"It's never going to happen to me"/my last text or email is more important than some trolley dolly's' speech?

I work for a passenger ferry company. The Captain or Mate gives the welcome aboard/safety brief including the location of the life jackets over the PA, the deck crew then demonstrate the life jacket donning procedure. The most common question afterwards (if they actually bothered to stop their conversation/put down their phone/ipad/etc.) is "Where are they kept?" Er? Didn't you consider listen to the safety announcement?

Those who thought they were too important to pay attention to their own safety are usually the most vocal about how they had no idea what to do when the emergency/accident actually happens.

PW
 
Crossing the channel in light a/c and using the low level approved route at 1500ft, we always wore our LJs and had the dinghy in the cabin, rather than the baggage compartment. Unlike an airliner, there is a reasonable chance of ditching a light low wing monoplane, if the water is relatively calm. I remember one bloke ditched his little wooden single seater. Since it floated, he waited for a coaster to fish him out and they winched up the a/c too.

One thing, habitual users of LJs ( like yachties) at least have a slightly better chance in extremis. Knowing not to inflate in the cabin and donning quickly.
 
galadriel said:
I have always thought a LJ on an aircraft about as useful as a seat belt on a motorcycle. In fact I have also always thought that the 'brace position' is as close as you can get to kissing your arse goodbye.
Click to expand...

Extraordinary how some lay-people feel more qualified to judge such things than the experts.

Galadriel, you just sit there bolt upright and get your face smashed into the seatback in front of you, the rest of us aren't that daft. Sadly one of us may even have to hazard our safety, even our life, to drag you out because through your own irresponsibility you now can't manage it yourself.

How is a lifejacket even remotely comparable to a seatbelt on a motorcycle? If you end up in the oggin you'll be needing a lj and I guess you'd be pretty vocal if you thought you needed one and it wasn't there...

Perhaps, if you actually thought about it, you'd see the point of both. After all, they are simply there to give you a better chance of survival.
 
Trust me, if there was no safety case they wouldn't be fitted.
It costs fuel and servicing to carry them and the airlines are experts at convincing authorities to help them reduce costs so the fact that they are mandated (on flights over water) is evidence enough that there is a strong case for carrying them.
 
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