BA 747 ditching video
 

I found this gem the other day which was used in the mid 70's in cabin crew training. A very well produced internal training film, you can feel the tension building in the opening minutes. Some great fashions and make up applications of the era make it even more special.
What do you think?

At least there would have been plenty of flares onboard.

Extinguish all cigarettes!

Start securing the cabin 3 hours into a transatlantic flight BUT DON’T ALARM THE PASSENGERS!
“Yes sir I know you’re half way through your meal but I really do need to take your tray....there is no cause for alarm”.

I wonder which category of passenger we all fall into? Those that can help or those that would hinder?
And I don't doubt someone would be on here afterwards complaining that there was no separate raft for First / Club Europe passengers!

I see a few familiar faces one of them being the co founder of Dreamflight Pat Pearce MBE.
https://mobile.twitter.com/dreamflightpat?lang=en

This is really interesting, thanks for posting! I think current knowledge of ditching in a large aircraft (some based on Ethiopian flight 961) would expect a lot more damage and destruction then portrayed here. Did crew videos touch on how to handle a damaged aircraft too? Or is it a case of improvising.

How do BA treat their crew after a serious incident? I would hope there is counselling and paid time off etc. or even a bonus for a really difficult situation well handled (BA38, or BA2276 in Las Vegas come to mind)

Back in 2008, Captain Peter Burkill suggested in his excellent book that there was no immediate plan within the organisation as to what to do with the crew. Unite ended up looking after him, taking him to a hotel and telling him they were going for a curry and too many beers. The counselling was to be done by alcohol. His family and friends were hounded out of their homes by the media frenzy. Later on, more effort was made to rehabilitate him but that did not work out. Of course, this is only one side of the story.

I am sure that BA learnt a lot in the aftermath of that event and things would be very different today. But it is staggering that even as recently as 2008, they did not have a plan to turn to, or if they did, nobody thought to get in out of the cupboard.

A very interesting reminder that CC are MUCH more than just providers of food and drinks.

This was a fascinating watch, and clearly still highly relevant, although it is worth pondering how much more complex the cabin environment would be these days. It would have been relatively easier when the only hindrances passengers had on them were glasses, ballpoints and a backgammon board - now you have to deal with phones, tablets, laptops, IFE etc., and pax wanting to take their hand luggage with them.

The production managed to capture the building tension to a superb extent. I tend to think I am well-acquainted with the ins-and-outs of aviation safety (I hope so at least, as it is part of my job!), and am therefore reassured and try to be reassuring on these sorts of scenarios. Nonetheless, I felt that same sense of foreboding watching this as I do when seeing the old Protect & Survive videos - even though in this video everything seemed to "end well" and you are in much better hands with that crew than hiding under a wooden dining table in the face of Soviet nuclear attack...

It did make me wonder - would there really be time for such calm preparation in an incident warranting a ditching mid-Atlantic? Or are we used these days to ETOPs allowing diversion to Reykjavik/Shannon/Gander etc., while 45(!) years ago there would have been more chance of having to ditch?

I think in reality, the chances of any aircraft landing in one piece in the middle of the open seas in order to perform such an evacuation would little to none, let alone successfully evacuating into life rafts and bobbing about with a load of survivors attracting air/sea rescue with little mirrors. That would have applied in 1975 just as much as it does today. But so long as there is a chance it could happen then the responsibility must be there to provide all the equipment necessary to aid survival and train crew in their use should the need ever arise. There was the Air Transat A330 incident a few years ago which encountered a fuel leak mid Atlantic which resulted in complete fuel starvation. Had it not been for the crews more southerly track than usual that took the aircraft within range of the Azores when the leak occured, the glide it ultimately made to safety would have resulted in something like this training video. That's quite a sobering thought when you think about it.

This video explains what we would have done in a preplanned ditching, a lot has changed as you might expect, we also practice unplanned ditching as well.

Was Angus Deayton in one of the scenes ?

No he wasn’t.

How much has training and equipment on board in 2021 evolved from this?

Surprisingly most of the ditching training is the same but the equipment is very different.

Dang. Talk about the stereotypical British stiff upper lip:
"We're going to have to ditch the plane in a water landing in the middle of nowhere."
"Well . . . all right, then."

Funniest part: "Survivors may fall in the water."

Yes, likewise the Captain “only one thing for it...”, as if talking about giving a good thump to a particularly sticky door which won’t open.

Very interesting and sobering video - thanks for sharing!!

“What’s in the survival kit?”

”Essentials....... barley sugars”. :D

Although as others have said, a fairly sobering viewing.

Co the CC still size up and make a mental note on every flight of suitable pax who they ask to assist in the event of an emergency? Do they look at those in the exit row wile they do the specific "you are sitting in an exit row" briefing as to which pax they would call on per door if needed?

Speaking as someone who 99 times out of 100 is in the exit door row on a SH flight I can't say I've ever noticed.

A selection of M&S drinks and snacks and a chip & pin mobile device?

This is the closest I’ve seen captured ‘in real life’.


And below is I think the more modern equivalent

Another curiosity from that video is the "Brace" position. This has always baffled me because to the layman it seems that if you are bent forward like that and a rapid and sudden deceleration (such as during a water ditching) occurs your head would slam very hard into the seat back in front and risk breaking your neck or at least render you unconscious? Seems even more likely with seat pitch declining from some 34" in Y a few decades ago down to the 29" that seems to be the norm today.

However there is clearly not a better position or it would have been adopted by now and sitting more upright would result in your face slamming into the seat-back but a broken nose and teeth would seem preferable to being rendered unconscious etc.

I know there are many theories around this over the years, ie the brace position means you are more likely to break your neck therefore cannot sue the airline :D and / or preserving your teeth intact if a fatal crash is preferred by the authorities because it is much easier to be identified using dental records. ;). Neither of which are true I'm sure :eek:

Yes, my own humorous remarks aside, I have been feeling rather unsettled since watching at lunchtime. Testament to the quality of the production.

Incidentally, if you click through to watch on YouTube itself, there are some comments from one of the cast members on how they filmed it.

I think getting your head down and covering your head would potentially reduce injuries from flying bits and pieces. I always worry about all tjose 20kg bags in overhead stowages...

Very interesting in many respects. They all stayed nice and calm didn't they,

But don't the seat backs break away forwards under load? This way, perhaps the intention is that the seat back should break away under pressure from the passenger's head at a time when there is zero relative velocity between them; but if the passenger was sitting upright, the seat back would only break away when the passenger's head hits it at speed, perhaps in excess of 100 mph?

That's surely straight from the Eric Moody school of British Airways pilot speaking.

The South African Airways video is excellent and BA have many of the same procedures, taking your first NITS briefing is something you always remember.

Ever had anything serious?

Both could have been but ended safety.

Ever wondered why CC still stand in the aisles while the safety video plays? They’re watching to see who’s paying attention. And that’s who they’ll be going to if the worst happened.

This is post-9/11 and I am a big dude (6"4 300lbs) that used to fly a lot for work. One of my good friends was an AF purser and he said they for sure made a mental note that there was a potential helper in me if they needed to subdue someone for example (I would have assisted if asked of course). I am sure they notice a lot of things about passengers that we would miss, this is just an anecdotal report obviously.

The one thing that strikes me is the need to get people to use the lavatory if possible before exiting the aircraft. And what happens thereafter? Do people simply wet themselves?

That's the sort of thing my mother would do!
Quick, get out, the aircraft is sinking......
I just need to spend a penny first :rolleyes:

Are these survival kits still onboard aircraft today?

Fascinating video!

Are you able to share the equipment changes?

Wasnt their also Polar kits in the 1970s for such flights?

Each slide raft has a survival kit attached and each door that has a slide raft has a pack that is carried off.

The survival packs and kits are very similar but the slide rafts are different.
We carried Polar Kits on flights to Tokyo and Osaka via Anchorage, they are no longer carried.

Thanks.

Were the Polar Kits just a handful for crew to undertake external inspections if the aircraft landed somewhere inhospitable? Or were they intended to be used by passengers?