WEBVTT - Three Minutes Till Impact 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.840 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.640 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:18.520 First of all, if I sound a little weird on 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.080 today's podcast, I apologize. I recently had some whizisdom teeth 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.119 taken out and my mouth is not completely helled, so 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.800 I may sound a little whistle word. I don't know, 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.360 like you've got cotton in the back of your mouth. Yeah, 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.400 but you might seem wiser, yeah, yes, or at least 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:36.640 you've dumped that vestigial junk in your mouth and know 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:38.559 what I'm saying. That's right. We had the whole episode 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:40.720 in the past on parts of our bodies that we've 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.159 abandoned and no longer need, and yet they're still around, 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.520 and then the question of well, have we really left 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.120 them behind completely? Maybe they do have a purpose, just 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.479 a purpose that we don't have to use as much 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.680 in modern times. So I was thinking about that a 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:57.840 little bit though in the past few days I've been, 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:03.400 especially with some of your pinkillers. Yeah, alright, so what 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:05.800 are we talking about today? Today? We are talking about 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.920 falling out of airplanes. Or falling in airplanes. Either way 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.640 you want to look at it. What is your philosophy 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.399 on this? You've flown, but what is it like? What 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:15.560 goes through your mind when you're taking off, when you're landing, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:17.880 when you're up there? Are you afraid of falling in 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.560 the plane? You have a survival plan in mind? What's 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.520 your dealing I don't really have a survival plan in mind, 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:25.920 although after this podcast I know I will. But I 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.000 think that everybody to some degree is very frightened of 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.880 the proposition of crashing in a plane, right because a 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:34.720 plane seems crazy to us at some level that we 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.959 could be thirty thou feet in the air, supported by 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.720 these wings that are just dealing with with the pressure 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.280 of air that's forcing them upwards and keeping us afloat. 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.040 So my feeling is that everybody has had some level 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:53.040 of anxiety, especially after you've ever experienced a really bad flight, 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.480 or even just a somewhat bad flight. Yeah. I mean, 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.360 on a basic level, we're going to a place where 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.760 man does not belong and and we and and we 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:03.560 know it. You're up really high, and if that plane 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.280 were to plummet, and sometimes they do, there's a very 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.760 good chance that it would kill us. True, and I 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.239 mean again, you're hurling through the air in a metal capsule. 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:15.239 You have no control. What's no control. The control of 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:17.000 the airplane is in the hands of people on the 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:19.919 other side of often the locked door. You're told to 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.240 set an appropriate place, You're told when to get up, 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.280 when to set down, when you can go to the bathroom. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.120 And uh, you know, especially if you're a control freak, 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:29.800 that can be a very intense situation. And adding some 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.120 claustrophobia on top of that, and you've got quite a 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:33.920 stressful time in a well. And then you look at 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:35.240 the chump next to you and you think, is this 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.880 person we're going to help out? You know when the 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.639 everything hits the fan? Yeah, I don't know. Well, it's 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.000 been my experience that in the past on flights, I'll 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.679 be kind of concerned taking off where I'm like, oh, 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:49.200 this could be this could be it, this could be 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:51.800 the last flight, right, And then as I get going, 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:56.160 if I am seated near annoying enough people, I'll end 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.480 up focusing on that and by the end of the flight, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.000 I will be wishing that we would crash into the ocean. 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.480 So it is my irritation with with my fellow humans 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.720 ends up exceeding my fear of death in the airplane. 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.800 All right, Well, before we play into everybody's fears about 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.240 falling and crashing, let's actually talk about how this is 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.120 truly in irrational fear. Yes, okay, so despite the horror 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.200 stories that we hear about plane crashes, that the real 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.200 lesson here is that people will actually make it through 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.720 crashes more often than not. According to the National Transportation 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:32.760 Safety Board, of passengers involved in plane crashes survived, the 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.240 majority of airplane accidents involve only non fatal injuries and 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.520 aircraft damage. Okay, so me, if you think about a 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:41.640 flight taking off or landing, that's usually when you have 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.600 some sort of crash situation. So just everybody knows it's 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.320 the rule of plus three minus eight plus the first 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:50.160 three minutes in the last eight minutes of the flight, 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.800 those are the times when you statistically have the greatest 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.280 chance of something happening. Right, So, yes, that's probably what 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.080 when people are most nervous. But you should know that 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:03.480 these flights are mostly survival. So let's also talk about 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.400 flying versus driving, because this gives us a really good 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:10.040 hold on what your chances are of perishing in one 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.520 of these two ways. For starters, I should mention that 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.560 the number of successful flights worldwide and two thousand eleven 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.359 alone thirty eight million, two point eight billion passengers that 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.400 were flying safely in because the year alone, And that 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:24.240 relates to the fact that I would use early on 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.640 to I mean, I was never like super afraid of flying, 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:28.280 but I would never go a little tense, and I 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.680 would just remind myself, when is the last time I 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.200 solntvd an entire basketball team was wiped out, or an 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.599 entire roster of a wrestling promotion, or people that fly 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:41.880 on a regular basis and they're still flying and they've 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.240 been flying on their whole lives. If crashing were really 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.839 that huge for a possibility, it would just be like 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.320 every year you'd see a basketball team just go down 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.640 in flames. And so that's what you see here. An 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.320 enormous number of people fly every day, and the vast 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.440 majority of them are not perishing. And then when you 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.880 look at it compared to cars, all right, if you 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:04.080 look at the total, we're looking at thirty four thousand, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:08.000 two hundred nine transportation fatalities in the US alone in 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.080 two thousand and ten, we break those down, we have 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.000 twelve thousand, four hundred and thirty five from passenger cars, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.520 pretty extensive, and then we have six hundred seventy two 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.640 from boats recreational boats, and then only four hundred and 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.280 seventy two from all aviation. And I do think it's 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.080 interesting to note to that in two thou eight, the 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:33.120 US fatality rate was less than one per billion passenger trips, okay, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.520 and then if you compare that to the US road 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.520 fatalities thirty five thousand and up, that's quite a difference, right, Yeah. 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.440 The global accident rate for Western built planes actually improved 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.159 in two thousand eleven, going from about one crash for 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.599 every one point six Newigan flights to one crash for 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.600 every two point seven million flights. And those stats, by 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.040 the way, are from this awesome infographic that house stuff 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.039 Works created for a curiosity website. I think I've linked 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:58.640 to it before on the Facebook page, and I'll help 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:00.600 link to it again with the blog folks that accompanies 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.600 of this podcast. So what we're seeing here is a 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.279 manifestation of our psychological fears. Right. There's a good study 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.800 that actually plays this out, and it's a study of 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.719 the impact of nine eleven on road fatalities. So in 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:17.240 two thousand and five, Garrett Blaylock wanted to measure the 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.520 psychological effects of fear flying with nine eleven. Of course 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.560 is the context, since the public had suddenly shunned flying 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.040 for fear of more unfolding terrorist plots. Yeah, everyone remembers, 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.839 O this went down. Um, nine eleven occurred. You had 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.760 these hijacked planes, you have these fatalities, and people got 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.400 tense about flying. The flight industry got tense about people flying. 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.760 Everybody was tense, and so a lot of people ended 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.640 up instead of taking that vacation that involved a flight, 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.479 they scaled down and they decided to drive instead. So 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.960 you have more people on the road. They're feeling safer, 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.920 right because when's the last time the terrorist attacked occurred 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.400 on a Honda. Yeah, but exactly. But it's possible, I suppose. 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.120 But this actually increased people's exposure to fatal crashes. Americans 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.200 wound up suffering extra fatalities, and Laylock said that our 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.200 findings reveal an additional two hundred forty two road fatalities 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.680 per month for the period from October two thousand and 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.360 one to December two thousand and one. Yeah, they calculated 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:15.760 extra fatalities, which is more than died in the nine 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:20.240 eleven air crashes themselves, just the crashes, mind you. Right, So, okay, 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:22.720 we've planned some stats that you guys, we're gonna take 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:24.040 a break and we get back. We're going to talk 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.280 about how to best survive a crash and free fall. 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:33.640 All right, we're back, and I want to point out 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.840 just to throw one more alarming and comforting stat If 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.040 you're flying, one in five million. That's the approximate odds 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:41.840 of dying in a plane crash in the United States. 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.160 The odds of dying in a car crash one eight five. 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:47.320 If you're listening to this prior to your flight, are 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:49.320 on your flight, breathe a sigh of relief. If you're 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.560 driving home listening to this, look around you tighten up, 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.560 very careful. Maybe turn off the podcast. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, okay, 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.400 so you're up in the air. Let's talk about who, 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:04.320 statists stickly is going to survive crash. Well, birds obviously 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.280 not all birds, right, Well, driven quite a lot of 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:12.640 birds crashing with plane lailing. Yeah, insects, beings that are 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.360 composed either of water, or have a less compact body 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.440 system going on, right, okay, all right? According to popuar Mechanics, 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:22.320 their article how to Fallow feet and Survive by Dan 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.040 Keppel says that statistically, it's best to be a flight 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.920 crew member, a child, or traveling in a military aircraft, 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.200 and that over the past four decades there have been 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.840 at least a dozen commercial air lines crashes with just 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.120 one survivor, and of those documented, four of the survivor's 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.959 were crew in seven more passengers under the age of eighteen. Now, 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.880 for the crew members, it's easy enough to explain this, 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.160 and they have better restraint systems. And as we'll talk 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.960 in a little bit, if you were to survive a 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.560 crash and say that the plane sort of just split 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.120 in half and you were hurtling through the air, would 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.360 be better to me in your seat. But I don't 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:01.640 want to get into that quite yet. The big question 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.160 is why do children survive? And there's no consensus on this, 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.600 but there is this idea that children under the age 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:10.719 of four, especially under the age of four, have more 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.400 flexible skeletons, more relaxed muscle tone. Us and we actually 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.920 talked about exactly We talked about this concept before, um, 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:24.640 I believe it was getting shocked or surviving lightning volts. 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.600 Lightning volts, lightning volts of coursing through your body. That 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.160 if you happen to be picked up by a tornado 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.000 or some other force and dumped on the ground, it 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.400 would be better if you were kind of out if 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.560 you've been hit. I think what the example was if 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.760 you had been hit by say a lamp first, because 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.199 if your body is relaxed, it's much more apt to 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.440 actually deal with the shock of being put down by 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.240 a tornado in another place anyway, Well, this often comes 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.559 up in discussions of drunk driving fatalities as well. Obviously 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.160 that you have a situation where the drunk driver is 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:59.880 more out of it and therefore they're less tents. Yeah, 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.800 is the sober individual is more tense understandably when someone 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:06.480 slams into them, and then the survival rate is sometimes 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.000 better for the actual drunk driver in the scenario. So kids, 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.400 they have more relaxed special turnus and so that's what 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.600 we're actually talking about here. And then a higher proportions 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:20.200 subcutaneous fat which helps to protect internal organs, right, and 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.520 then smaller people whose heads are lower than the seat 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.400 backs in front of them are shielded more so short 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:30.040 chebby children with a relaxed attitude about life. Yeah, meditating. 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.920 Yeah no, I mean that's not actually funny to talk about, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.080 but um we can find humor in it. Yeah, well, 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.520 I mean, you know we're talking about subject is a 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.120 serious subject. So that is why they think that those 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.200 are the folks that tend to survive crashes. So it's 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.240 good to be in a better restraint system or shrink 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.040 yourself the safest place on the plane. Now, this have 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.959 come up against different information on this. Popular Mechanics analyzed 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.320 data from every commercial jet wreck in the United States 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.640 from nineteen we went to two thousand and five, and 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.280 they included that people sitting near the tail have a 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.000 higher chance of survival than those sitting in the front. Well, 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:07.800 one of the classic examples will look at in a 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.320 little bit was a tailgun and at the seventeen So yeah, yeah, 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.440 And then there's other data that says if you are 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.800 sitting about five seats from the exit doors, then you're 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:19.880 in better shape. But some other people who say it 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.120 was only in the case of a fire because the 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.679 proximity of the door really gives you an advantage. Another 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.600 good place the escape from New York Air Force one 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.840 escape pod. If you remember this from the movie No, 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.480 I don't. Is this the Bruce willis No, No No. 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.920 This is Kurt Russell and John Carpenter's epic. Oh yeah, 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:41.280 Donald Pleasants played the president estrangely enough, British Donald Pleasants, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:42.720 and he climbed in it and it like falls out 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.560 of the plane and bounces. There's another strategy. And then 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.000 there's the Golden time. Yes, the Golden time, which isn't 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.560 as happy and stress free as it sounds. But this 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.640 revers to the critical ninety seconds immediately following impact. So 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.439 in a survival crash, obviously you have fatalities that a 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.200 Kurblin aircraft hits the ground, But then after the plane 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.120 to sit the ground, what happens hasardous chemicals are released, 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.679 Things begin to set fire, things start to get out 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.560 of control. So you have about ninety seconds after you 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.520 hit the ground where you need to flee the vessel. Yeah, 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.160 And I think that this is particularly important in takeoff 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.599 and landing crashes, right because these are when they have 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.880 the whole slides and everything that the inflatable slides, because 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:21.800 the whole idea is something's gone wrong, and even if 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:23.800 it's just a matter of the plane getting whacked up 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.360 a bit or doing a very rough valley landing, we 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.360 need to get everyone away from it because the vessel 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.280 is potentially compromised at this point, right, So those ninety 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.320 seconds are your chance to calm yourself and try to 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:37.720 think rationally and logically. Those are the people who tend 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.120 to survive more if they can harness that and not 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.760 panic and freak out. Another thing I wanted to point 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.040 out to is that, according to the f f A, 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.000 using the brace position is three times safer than sitting 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.640 upright in a crash. So there actually is a point 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.080 to the whole the brace you know that can cover 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.760 exactly So just in case you thought that was something 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.320 that was created to make you feel better about the flight, 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:01.480 like know, sort of like they say, oh, you've got 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.880 your floating cushion underneath, and sometimes I think, really, such 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.360 a psychological you know that actually is helpful as well 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.720 as the floating cushion. So let's say you are falling, 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.320 either the plane has split open and you're you've been 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.000 thrown free of it, or miraculously you've managed to work 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.880 your way to an exit and throwing yourself out of 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.679 the plane. Now you're just you're falling, bon are you 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.560 at this point? Well, gravity is pulling you towards Earth 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:28.800 and you're going faster. Right, Let's talk about it in 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.360 that perspective. And like any moving object, you create drag 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.440 more as your speed increases, and when downward forced equals 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:40.640 upward resistance, acceleration stops and you max out. And the 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.560 popular mechanics article put that max about usually like the 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:48.079 average about a hundred twenty miles per hour. So right 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.559 now you know that unless you can create more drag 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:52.600 and you can slow down a bit, you're probably going 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.720 to make impact at one per hour on something, right, Yeah, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.920 the terminal velocity things really interesting in terms of survival falls. 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:02.800 Radio Lab did an episode a couple of years back 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.560 now about falling and they had a segment that dealt 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.520 with the reality of cats falling out of high rise 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.520 windows in New York City, which they do. You know, cats, 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:13.520 they are locked up inside and they all have that 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:18.679 intense call of the wild and well, yeah, nine lives 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.440 and they desperately want to get outside and eat some 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.640 grass and puke and eat some birds and puke a 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.480 little more and lay in the dust and roll around 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.760 it and all that stuff. So inevitably somebody opens a 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.360 window leaves it cracked or something, and the cat will 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.960 go out, get a little over excited and plummet and 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.960 in this particular radio but they talked about how there's 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.960 like a lower level range. Of course, cats are very 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.360 agile and they're good at surviving falls from low level, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.520 so certain lower stories on building everything is good. Then 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.680 there's a mid range where the cat is pretty much 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.000 boned because it's going to be a lethal fall. But 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.720 then there's an upper level where suddenly survivalism kicks back 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.520 in a again. And it has to do with terminal velocity. 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.560 The argument here is in these scenarios, cats fell far 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.280 enough that they achieved terminal velocity and they were spread 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.160 out and then they were able to manage their fall successfully. 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:14.520 It's kind of the argument here. Well, and then that's interesting. 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:16.680 You say that there's a stat from the Geneva based 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.600 Aircraft Crashes Record Office and they say that about a 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.920 hundred and eighteen thousand people have died in more than 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:28.240 fifteen thousand plane crashes between nine and eight okay, Uh, 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.680 confirmed or plausible accounts of lift to tell about incidents 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.680 is only a hundred fifty seven and of those hundred 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.080 fifty seven, only forty two occurring at heights over ten 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.000 thousand feet. So to your point, the higher up obviously, 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.160 the more of a drop in, the more terminal velocity 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.160 you talked about managing the fall. Yes, this is a 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.680 really interesting concept. Well. First of all, as the Popular 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.200 Mechanics article points out, one thing you can do is 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.880 if you see a piece of the plane floating, they're 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.960 falling with you rather not floating. Uh. If you can 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.000 wedge yourself in there, you might have an increased chance 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.920 of survival. Right. The more debris that you can kind 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.920 of land on top of, the better, right. Nine seventy 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.240 two Serbian flight attendant by the name of Vestna Bolivick, 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.080 she was in a d C nine over Czechoslovakia, blows up. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:17.240 She ends up following thirty three thousand feet which between 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.120 her seat and a catering trolley in the section of 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.680 the aircraft, and she ends up surviving. So it's severely 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.600 injured but survives thirty three thousand foot drop. There's actually 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.720 a term for this called wreckage. Writing writing. Yeah, so 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.440 if you can kind of gather yourself around that debris, 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.680 the better, and thirty three thousand feet is that is incredible. 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.400 Of course, she sustained some serious injuries, but she lived 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.320 to tell about it. There's another person named Julianne Copecki. 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.360 On Christmas Eve nineteen seventy one, she was on the 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.280 airplane and it was traveling over the Amazon when it 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.440 exploded and she woke up on the jungle floor. She 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.560 was strapped into her seat. Again, this is important. That 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.000 seat helped, you know, with her fall. In terms of 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.360 christening her fall. She was surrounded by falling holiday gifts. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.760 She remembered advice from her father, a biologist that because 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:09.600 she obviously she was like, I'm very hurt here, but 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:11.879 I have survived it, and she sort of just compartmentalized. 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.359 She remembered the advice from her father, which was to 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.639 find civilization. When lost in the jungle, you should follow water. 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.880 So she's got a broken collar bone, she's got maggot 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:26.120 filled injuries, right, and she's wading through all of these 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.480 streams until she gets to bigger and bigger bodies of water, 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.359 and then finally she finds a canoe. It takes her 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:35.040 like forever to get in the canoe because again she's injured. 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.439 And she gets to the banks where she finds some 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:41.520 lumberjacks and it takes two hours to scale this hill. 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.840 Before she can they finally see her. But again this 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.760 is this is really interesting survival information. That is best 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:51.920 to leave the plane crash if possible, because that's really 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.360 gonna up your chances of survival. But before you can 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:56.360 leave the plane crash, of course, you have to hit 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.720 the ground. Yes, it's unavoidable. The fall is one thing, 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.800 but it's that sudden stop at the end. There was 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:03.720 the Kids in the Hall sketch back in the day 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.159 where an individual has a parachute on and they're doing 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.840 skydiving and the first person jumps out is his shoe 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.639 doesn't open and he splats on the ground. The second 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.160 one does it splats on the ground. I think it's 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:14.840 the third two. And the whole time there's a guy 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:16.639 back in the line and he's doing running the stats 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:18.359 in his head. He's like, what are the chances of 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.600 one person dying during a sky dive And he's calculating 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.040 those odds and what are the chances of too what 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.280 are the chances of three? And then he finally convinces 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.080 himself that his best odds are to jump out without 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.520 a shoot and to hit the ground running that if 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.000 he's running fast enough in mid air, he'll survive. Um, 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.600 that is not one of the tactics that we ran across. 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.159 But there are basically two schools of thought. First of all, 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:43.600 you want to be like that cat. You want to 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:45.320 be like that skydiver here in the fall. You want 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.840 to spread out so that you can you can flying squirrel. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.560 so you can achieve terminal velocity well, and because you're 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.200 slowing yourself down a bit and you're able to maneuver 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.480 a little while. Yeah. And of course here's the thing though, 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.560 once you impact is eminent, you got to change your 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.480 body position because that would obviously result in this flat 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.640 right there. According to studying the Journal War Medicine, they 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.359 would argue for staying more or less in this position. 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:16.080 They're saying wide body impact is ideal, which makes a 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:17.879 certain amount of sense. I mean, it's kind of like 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.240 if you're on thin ice, you want to spread out right, 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.719 you know, down. But then in nineteen sixty three report 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.840 by the Federal Aviation Agency argued that shifting into the 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.920 classic skydiverse landing stance feed together heels up, flex knees 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.919 and hips was the best to increase survivability because I 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:35.639 really see the other one as being sort of a 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:40.320 vehicle for splatness. And then there's this idea of landing 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:44.080 in water, which perferably you should not. Yeah, perferably you 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:48.359 shouldn't because ultimately, landing quote unquote in water is going 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.280 to be like landing quote unquote in concrete. The concrete 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:53.920 is not going to give. There's gonna be no bounce 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.280 to that. Well, there's gonna be some bounce, but it's 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.600 not gonna be the concrete. It's gonna be doing it likewise, 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:00.840 hitting water to high speed. You've ever done a belly 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:05.120 flop into a pool, imagine that from thirty feet it's 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.679 gonna be like it in concrete. You're gonna bust apart 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.040 on it. And then those pieces are gonna sink, but 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.800 only after you've made impact unless you position yourself like 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.000 a pencil. Right, And again, it's not attet that you're 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.680 free falling this. You hit it after a thousand feet. Yeah, 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.720