Ever wondered why flight attendants always ask you to remove your earphones before takeoff or landing? Here’s the horrifying reason.
We all know the drill. Before your flight takes off, you’ll most probably be asked to remove your headphones by the flight attendants, and the same again will happen as your plane prepares to land. But they never explain why.
Most people onboard oblige, but some will just pop them earbuds straight back in once the cabin crew have passed by and taken their seats. But a stark warning from an airline pilot on Quora, has us thinking maybe we all need to start doing what we’re told!
Sebastian Lender, who is an airline pilot, advises that if your plane should hit a flock of birds – known as bird strike, and you’re wearing headphones that are banging out the latest Justin Bieber tune, that you won’t hear the warnings from the flight deck or from the cabin crew telling you to brace for impact, which could lead you to receive catastrophic injuries like shattered shins, fractured arms, but perhaps worst of all, that the impact from the “vertical compression broke your back”.
Although rare, bird strike is a real threat to aircraft, particularly during takeoff and landings. One of the most recent high-profile instances of a bird strike causing an aeroplane to crash land was the US Airways Flight 1594, which crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in 2009.
Luckily no one was killed or severely injured in that particular crash due to the professional actions and instructions from the flight deck and from the cabin crew, but there have been instances were crash landings have caused fatalities and horrifying, life-changing injuries.
So remember when your cabin crew tell you to do something, it’s always for a reason and shouldn’t be ignored.