Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Stuff you Should Know. And I'm Josh Clark
Speaker 1: and that's Chuck Bryant, Right, Chuck. That's a very formal introduction. Josh,
Speaker 1: I like it said, I'd loosen up a little bit
Speaker 1: made you're good. Check you remember we're talking about like
Speaker 1: the worst way to die in a podcast several podcast back,
Speaker 1: and uh, I said, for me, the worst way to
Speaker 1: die would be a plane crash, right, because you're on
Speaker 1: your way down and you're fully aware of the whole time,
Speaker 1: probably of what's about to happen. I can't think of
Speaker 1: anything worse than dying in a plane crash with a
Speaker 1: bunch of strangers. Yeah, you know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: die with people you don't know. Um, okay. So one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I said that was because I've had
Speaker 1: a terrible experience on a plane and nothing really untoward happened,
Speaker 1: Like there wasn't a lot of turbulence or anything like that. Um,
Speaker 1: but I I know it the hard way that I'm
Speaker 1: actually afraid of flying. Most of the time. When I fly,
Speaker 1: it's too you know, if I fly at all, it's
Speaker 1: to Europe or to Mexico or something like that. Right,
Speaker 1: so it's a long flight, I'll take a callot of
Speaker 1: pin and you know, drink some Scotch and then that's it.
Speaker 1: I wake up and I'm where I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 1: It's like a time travel machine to you pretty much. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: and it works like a champ right. Um. But the
Speaker 1: thing is that I'm never conscious or at the very
Speaker 1: least cognizant or you know, doing anything but drooling the
Speaker 1: whole way right. Well, on the way back actually from Mexico,
Speaker 1: we had to lay over in Miami. I had no
Speaker 1: pharmaceuticals and uh I didn't have I think it was
Speaker 1: a cash flight, cash bar flight. I didn't have any money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the point. I just shelled out like half of
Speaker 1: my life savings for this flight from Miami to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: And you can't give me liquor for free, right right?
Speaker 1: All right? So anyway, this this perfect storm of horribleness
Speaker 1: transpires and I'm in the air and all the way
Speaker 1: from Miami to Atlanta. Um, I'm I'm just completely convinced
Speaker 1: over and over again, the plane's about to go down, right,
Speaker 1: And I was actually looking up how fear works, right,
Speaker 1: and I found out that when you have a fear response,
Speaker 1: there's two things going on. Number one is this real
Speaker 1: quick knee jerk reaction that alerts you to danger, and
Speaker 1: our old friend fighter flights and um um fight or
Speaker 1: flight response perks up. And then you've got a more
Speaker 1: thoughtful process that takes a little longer, that's really analyzing
Speaker 1: context and stuff like that. And then if it if it,
Speaker 1: if it concludes you're not in danger, it tells your
Speaker 1: your hypothalamus to settle down, be rational, right, and then
Speaker 1: you calm down. But this kept happening over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. So for three hours, it was like
Speaker 1: every twenty seconds I was cresting the hill of a
Speaker 1: roller coaster. It was one of the worst things that
Speaker 1: ever happened to me. So a lesson learned. As far
Speaker 1: as I'm concerned, I'll never travel. I'm prepared again. Um.
Speaker 1: But but it turns out from what I understand, that
Speaker 1: the chances of me actually going down in a plane,
Speaker 1: but this isn't These facts and figures don't make me
Speaker 1: feel any better at all. But rationally speaking, I have
Speaker 1: a very little chance of going out on a plane,
Speaker 1: don't yeah about you want another number? Are you speculating? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: I know that. You know I was setting you up
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, that's a good one. UM. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Your chances of dying, I'm sorry, no, I'm dying. Your
Speaker 1: chances of even being involved than an airline crash, um
Speaker 1: are one in eleven million. Uh And when you compare
Speaker 1: that to your chances of actually been killed in a car,
Speaker 1: And this is the one you always hear airline versus
Speaker 1: car or one in five thousand. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm not driving the plane,
Speaker 1: so I have no control over its a car. It's
Speaker 1: I can maybe steer my way out of it. You think, well,
Speaker 1: that's one of the big reasons. It's not me thinking this.
Speaker 1: It's you know, people have studied this, and the lack
Speaker 1: of control has a huge uh part at place, UM
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that UM negative bias. So
Speaker 1: a plane crash gets a lot a lot of coverage,
Speaker 1: you know, so it seems like they're dropping out of
Speaker 1: the sky with regularity because they don't you know cover
Speaker 1: the news. The news didn't cover car crashes like now,
Speaker 1: you're definitely not going to see that in the NBC
Speaker 1: Nightly News. That's true. I've got I've got another another
Speaker 1: way of looking at it. Um, with numbers. Do you
Speaker 1: know you would have to fly on an airline every
Speaker 1: day for thirty five thousand years to be guaranteed up
Speaker 1: to that you're going to be in a plane crash?
Speaker 1: That isn't to becoming evidence. That is an awesome, awesome staff.
Speaker 1: That one came from air disaster dot com and um,
Speaker 1: that is a site that I would never recommend anyone
Speaker 1: go to if you have a fear of flying, because
Speaker 1: you don't because you sin, well, yeah exactly. I like
Speaker 1: to fly and it doesn't freak me out at all.
Speaker 1: Actually I don't like to fly. I hate to fly,
Speaker 1: but has nothing to do do with fear of crashing. What
Speaker 1: is just the long process of it? Yeah, the process,
Speaker 1: and I hate that and being stuck on the plane
Speaker 1: next to people and uh, touching strangers and people are
Speaker 1: obnoxious and the smells and I just hate it. Man.
Speaker 1: I think you're at a club, rubber, how you don't
Speaker 1: like to touching strangers? No, all right, well, good to
Speaker 1: know you see a little by the little club rubber.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that. Oh, I'll explain it later, okay, um,
Speaker 1: so okay, well, all right, we understand that there's very
Speaker 1: little chance that you're going to get into a plane rack,
Speaker 1: but they still happen. It does happen. Some people have
Speaker 1: a much closer relationship with fate and coincidence and chance
Speaker 1: than others. So let's say one of our listeners finds
Speaker 1: himself for herself in a plane that's going down. There's
Speaker 1: some things that you may or may not want to do.
Speaker 1: And actually before you even board, when you're booking a
Speaker 1: tap you made, there's some stuff you want to take
Speaker 1: into consideration, right, very true? Well like what uh, Well,
Speaker 1: before we get to that real quick, people should know
Speaker 1: just because your plane crashes doesn't mean you'll die either,
Speaker 1: just so reassuring I know. Uh. In fact, between nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty and two thousand, there were five six crashes in
Speaker 1: the US and more than of them survived. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Most of these, I have to say this, we're take
Speaker 1: off and landing crashes, but of the twenty six extreme crashes,
Speaker 1: and I think that means you're at thirty three thousand
Speaker 1: feet and then you go to zero feet. Uh, you
Speaker 1: have more than fifty chance of surviving that. Even I
Speaker 1: would lose my mind. Yeah, I would lose my mind
Speaker 1: as I was walking away from that, you would. So.
Speaker 1: Having said that, if you are on a plane and
Speaker 1: you're a fan of ours and you're going down, we
Speaker 1: feel very bad for you. But future you unless you're
Speaker 1: actually listening to this on a plane that's going down.
Speaker 1: If so, hats off to you. Right, you've really achieved
Speaker 1: the you know, I don't know what the other two
Speaker 1: things are, but near the other one. The first thing
Speaker 1: most people want to find out about is there the
Speaker 1: safest seat? Yeah? And is there? Well, it depends on
Speaker 1: who you ask. If you ask the f a A,
Speaker 1: their official stances, No, there's not the safest seat exactly.
Speaker 1: That's what I think is. They can't really say that
Speaker 1: because people be like, I'm not sitting there, exactly. I
Speaker 1: don't want to sit in anything but the safe seat. Exactly.
Speaker 1: This is a death seat. But people study this stuff
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't believe. In popular mechanics, Great Magazine did
Speaker 1: a study and over a thirty six year period, they
Speaker 1: studied data plane crashes, commercial jet crashes um in the
Speaker 1: United States, and passengers in the rear of a plane
Speaker 1: are in fact, by their data, more likely to survive
Speaker 1: than those in towards the front of the pretty significant. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I guess any of you guys out there here
Speaker 1: about a book plane tickets, look for the back of
Speaker 1: the plane. Look for the back of the plane. The
Speaker 1: people don't listen to this podcast die right. People like
Speaker 1: sitting up front though, because you get the d board
Speaker 1: is deep board? Is that a word? You get embarked?
Speaker 1: This embarked off the plane quicker, and no one likes
Speaker 1: standing in that long line or everyone down they also die,
Speaker 1: Which one is it? You know you have to hear
Speaker 1: bye bye b bye, like a few more times than
Speaker 1: the people in the front. But you're going to survive
Speaker 1: if the plane goes down. So I've got some tips
Speaker 1: for you though, if you're on a plane before the
Speaker 1: crash ever happens, there's a few things you can do
Speaker 1: to improve your chances. Yeah, you're ready. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: something Actually after I wrote this article, I started doing
Speaker 1: this stuff. Oh yeah, man, definitely. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not a I don't believe in bad luck in jinxes,
Speaker 1: But I thought I was jinxed I wrote this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I'm the guy that wrote the article, and
Speaker 1: then I'm going to be the one, ironically that perishes,
Speaker 1: you know from So once you're on board, get to
Speaker 1: your seat, find the exit row. This is a no brainer.
Speaker 1: But here's a little trick. What you want to do
Speaker 1: is you want to count how many rows are between
Speaker 1: you and the exit row and submit that number in
Speaker 1: your head, even if you're hopped up on pharmaceuticals and scotch.
Speaker 1: So if you count eleven rows to the exit row,
Speaker 1: a lot of times you might be in the dark.
Speaker 1: You might be underwater, you know. Think about that. You
Speaker 1: can feel the seats and feel one, two, three, five
Speaker 1: up to eleven, and then you know you took a
Speaker 1: left or right and you're at your exit right. And
Speaker 1: don't be misled by you know, a detached arm. You
Speaker 1: know if you're if you're in the dark, know the
Speaker 1: difference between a detached arm and a plane seats right.
Speaker 1: I did not put that tip in the article. I
Speaker 1: should have. The crash position is changed over the years,
Speaker 1: and not a lot of people know this. The did
Speaker 1: you get an impression of why the crash position changed. Well,
Speaker 1: my hope is that it's to make it more likely
Speaker 1: that you'll survive. I doubt if I hope there weren't
Speaker 1: politics or money behind it or anything like that. But
Speaker 1: I think you used to put your head between your
Speaker 1: legs and cover your between your knees and cover your head.
Speaker 1: Now that's not true. What you're supposed to do is
Speaker 1: you're supposed to extend your arms, uh, put your hands, um,
Speaker 1: cross your hands over each other, and put them against
Speaker 1: the seat, the seat back in front of you, and
Speaker 1: then put your head against the back of your hands.
Speaker 1: So you got your arms stretched out and I'm pressed
Speaker 1: against seat in front of you and your head resting
Speaker 1: on the back of your hands. That's the new official
Speaker 1: crass position. Yeah. Now I can actually see the lobby
Speaker 1: of the in Flight Magazine Publishers Association having that changed.
Speaker 1: You know, you're going down like wow, like can get
Speaker 1: that for that cheap? I want to know who does
Speaker 1: the artwork on those things. It's awesome. It's always the same,
Speaker 1: and there's like there's probably one dude in Vermont that
Speaker 1: does all that artwork. For one for the in flight
Speaker 1: little brochure you get, Oh, the calm ist Hindu cows people.
Speaker 1: The graphics. I love that that drawing, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's very Uh. Here's a little tip for you. Before
Speaker 1: you get on the plane. You should dress appropriately. And
Speaker 1: then that sounds silly. If you're going to Maui, you
Speaker 1: want to have on your Hawaiian shirt and your flip flops.
Speaker 1: But during after a plane crash, there's glass everywhere, there's
Speaker 1: jet fuel, there's fire, You're gonna want to be covered.
Speaker 1: So you should never wear open toad shoes. Um, you
Speaker 1: should wear long sleeves and long sleeve shirt as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes sense if you're smart. Many people want hear
Speaker 1: this advice though, because, like I said, they want to
Speaker 1: be comfy on you know, the transcontinental flights. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you if you have a family family, say you and
Speaker 1: your wife have like three kids, three or four kids,
Speaker 1: and you're getting on the plane, you want to divide
Speaker 1: the responsibility up between the parents because it's a lot
Speaker 1: harder for one like the father to try and wrangle
Speaker 1: four family members. Uh, and you might get separated. So
Speaker 1: Dad's in charge of little Timmy and Johnny, and mom's
Speaker 1: in charge of Sue and uh Jane. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: you if you have a lazy spouse, you may want
Speaker 1: to reconsider flying as a family. It's a good idea.
Speaker 1: Everything maybe on your shoulders. Yeah, and uh, listen, and
Speaker 1: this is a big one. Listen to the pre flight instructions.
Speaker 1: And now that's typically I guess you're trying to get
Speaker 1: your scotch Um. I'm annoyed with the people on both
Speaker 1: sides of myself. But this is when you need to
Speaker 1: be listening, because all planes are different, and there actually
Speaker 1: are some variations and instruction depending on what kind of Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually, yeah, I thought it was all the same.
Speaker 1: So it's a good advice now. And and if the
Speaker 1: oxygen mass drops, you know you're in trouble, put it
Speaker 1: on yourself first. And if you love your wife more
Speaker 1: than life itself, you may have an instinct to put
Speaker 1: it on her. But you have to save yourself first
Speaker 1: before you can save any of anounced is the general thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so those are those are starwinistic that last save yourself,
Speaker 1: save yourself so you can save others. Right, Okay, well, Chuck,
Speaker 1: as you were saying there, there's a substantial percentage of
Speaker 1: people who are in serious crashes that have survived, right,
Speaker 1: and one of them, uh was one one specific one
Speaker 1: was made into a movie, One plane crash. Right, what
Speaker 1: was it called Survive Alive? Yes, there's some I've I
Speaker 1: think it's alive. Okay, the the Uruguayan rugby team. You
Speaker 1: want to tell them about that? I well thought you
Speaker 1: were okay, Well, actually he's your favorite there's your favorite story.
Speaker 1: It's a great story. Um, and it's a great movie
Speaker 1: to actually um this Uh, this Uruguayan soccer team probably
Speaker 1: should have known a rugby team. I'm sorry, Um, they
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't known. They were on a plane for Chili
Speaker 1: and uh they were in the Andes Mountains, which is
Speaker 1: like just the they should call those things the widow makers.
Speaker 1: There's alwaysh yeah. Um. And it was Friday October, which
Speaker 1: if there's a day to not fly, it's that day,
Speaker 1: Friday the thirteenth in October. That's a bad day. Yeah, sorry, sure, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So their plane goes down, right, there's forty five people
Speaker 1: on board. It's not just the rugby team, but there's
Speaker 1: there's some others. Um and uh, basically for I think
Speaker 1: seventy two days. Um, the survivors some of them slowly
Speaker 1: died off. I think twelve initially died in the crash,
Speaker 1: and then over the course of time, another ten died
Speaker 1: over the next seventy two days. They didn't have any
Speaker 1: food or anything, so they ended up very famously resorting
Speaker 1: to cannibalism, which before they were they were finally find Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I love canible ism um and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the movie was alive. We hear rumors that there may
Speaker 1: be a follow up documentary about it coming. They're unsubstantiated,
Speaker 1: but keep an eye out for it. I think there
Speaker 1: has been a previous documentary some point too. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: they just had like some some reunion I believe what
Speaker 1: was the maybe reunion or something or reunion because a
Speaker 1: lot of these guys are still alive and they reunited
Speaker 1: for you know, I don't want to ever be around
Speaker 1: you people again. To her, right, you know, exactly all right?
Speaker 1: But okay, so what other what other things can you
Speaker 1: do to you know, maybe stay alive besides campbell is
Speaker 1: um unless you're forced to resort to it. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's say your plane is crashed and you're on the ground.
Speaker 1: The first ninety seconds is vital. The golden what they
Speaker 1: call that golden time, and uh, airlines are are responsible
Speaker 1: for getting everyone off in those ninety seconds. That's the
Speaker 1: goal for the airline industry. Uh. So that's what you
Speaker 1: really need to be concerned about. There's gonna be fire,
Speaker 1: potentially jet fuel, nasty stuff burning, So you want to
Speaker 1: get down low because the fumes from this stuff is
Speaker 1: more likely to kill you than being burnt. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what are airplane and see covers made of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly nothing. You want to put in your pipe and smoke,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Um, So, you know you've
Speaker 1: got all this nasty, toxic stuff in the air, so
Speaker 1: you want to get low, just like it to teach
Speaker 1: you at home, you know, stop dropping roll. Well I
Speaker 1: think it's if you're on fire. Yeah, but they teach
Speaker 1: you to get down to go under the smoke. The
Speaker 1: same principle here. Uh. If you do make it off
Speaker 1: the plane, which is the ideal scenario, you want to
Speaker 1: get the heck away from there because it could blow up.
Speaker 1: It could you know, any number of things could happen,
Speaker 1: So you want to get as far away from the
Speaker 1: plane as you can safely and get behind something. If
Speaker 1: there's something there, there's you know, a huge rock or
Speaker 1: a big tree. I mean, you just want to try
Speaker 1: and shield yourself in case there's a big explosion, and um,
Speaker 1: do not do not try and get your baggage off
Speaker 1: your carry on bags. It's good. What if you have
Speaker 1: your pet on board? H boy, you're asking the wrong guy.
Speaker 1: I would try and save my pet, but they say, no,
Speaker 1: matter what it is, leave it behind, it's not worth it.
Speaker 1: And uh man, I didn't. I wasn't anticipating that. Again,
Speaker 1: beer brush off the Luckily my pets don't fly, so
Speaker 1: I want to ever have to, uh to deal with that.
Speaker 1: They also say don't drink. I saw that and I
Speaker 1: was no, I just can't. Okay, well I can't normal right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that makes sense. I don't like to drink aboard
Speaker 1: a flight. It kind of I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: like it so without the pressure, and maybe it's the
Speaker 1: expense and those little bottles. I just I don't get
Speaker 1: it to love those little bottles. Uh. They also say
Speaker 1: not to inflate your life fest until um you're outside
Speaker 1: the cabin, because yeah, I can restrict your movement, but
Speaker 1: you don't want when you're running out of a plane
Speaker 1: on fire. No, you don't want to be at the
Speaker 1: exit and then your life fest gets hung on the
Speaker 1: seat before the explosion. And I think, Uh, that's about
Speaker 1: all the tips I have for you. You know, I
Speaker 1: do have one more thing, chuck. Um. People who survived
Speaker 1: plane crashes actually tend to um to uh score better
Speaker 1: here on emotional quotient tests things like post traumatic symptoms
Speaker 1: than people who have not been in plane crashes. They
Speaker 1: actually scored significantly higher. Um. There was a old Dominion
Speaker 1: University study of fifteen crash survivors across the United States,
Speaker 1: and um, these people just basically had a more positive
Speaker 1: outlook on life and didn't show the signs of stress
Speaker 1: like these people who who served as the control control
Speaker 1: group flew I think five times a year or more,
Speaker 1: and who had never been in a plane crash. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. They theorized that it was because they've
Speaker 1: been through this huge ordeal, and um, they kind of
Speaker 1: learned not to sweat the small stuff. Seriously, it makes sense,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. Um. And people again who had shown control,
Speaker 1: who were in control, like you you were suggesting, they
Speaker 1: actually hadn't the highest score of all if they thought
Speaker 1: of themselves of having stayed in control or maybe help
Speaker 1: somebody off the plane. Apparently, you just cannot have a
Speaker 1: better outlook on life than if you've helped someone off
Speaker 1: a burning plane when you survived a plane crash. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's seek it out. I wish I knew what that feeling.
Speaker 1: Kind of felt like yeah, kind of but at the
Speaker 1: same time kind of like kind of not yeah exactly. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's just one more quickie, Josh. And people never let
Speaker 1: these listeners go. I would be remiss if I didn't
Speaker 1: say that. Um, try to stay calm. That's the number
Speaker 1: one thing you can do because panic. Uh people can't
Speaker 1: even unbuckle their seatbelt many times because they're in such
Speaker 1: a state of panic. And uh, you know, stay calm.
Speaker 1: If you can, Chuck, you may have just saved some lives. Wow,
Speaker 1: you should feel good about yourself. Well, you know, if
Speaker 1: you have any plane crash survivors that survived because of
Speaker 1: my advice, please let me know. And I might feel
Speaker 1: like that guy that saved the person from the burning Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk about a positive outlook online. And before we let
Speaker 1: you go, let us just give you a little peek
Speaker 1: at what Chuck and I think is the coolest article
Speaker 1: on the site. It's called do We really get wise
Speaker 1: or with age. It is by our colleague writer Molly Edmonds.
Speaker 1: It's just a dynamo and our articles. She's a dynamo,
Speaker 1: she really is, and her article is super cool too,
Speaker 1: So both Chuck and I give that one that thumbs
Speaker 1: up and strongly recommend it. And you can find that
Speaker 1: article how to Survive a plane crash. Chuck's written a
Speaker 1: whole slew of survival articles and you can find them
Speaker 1: all by typing some clever words into the search bar
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an
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