If it is not obvious from the title, I have been reading the Hunger Games.
Like every partially to completely normal person in the world, I have fears. And while some of them are irrational fears, like my fear of complete silence (Sedatephobia), most of them are rational. Perhaps the greatest, most rational of these fears is dying in an airplane crash (Although, and I don't know why I felt the need to point this out, I am not afraid of flying in the least. Just of crashing).
I can put this fear down to one summer, a couple of years go, when I watched a marathon of Air Crash Investigation episodes on Nat Geo with my father. After six hours of watching planes crash in every possible way - engine failure, hijacking, flying into mountains - I turned into the most terribly paranoid flyer.
But for someone so scared of dying in a plane crash, I fly a lot. In the last month alone, I've flown eight times; four times while on vacation, and four times to visit family. Each time, I took every precaution to reduce the chances of my dying in the event of an emergency. I always chose a seat near the window (so that if the plane was hijacked I might go unnoticed, but if the engine caught on fire I'd be one of the first to know) and closer to the front of the plane (so that if the rear half of the fuselage is seperated from the front, like in the picture, I'd be sitting in the part that has engines and wings. Also the cockpit) . I read the safety instructions over and over again (and after eight flights, I think I have them memorised) and I watched the demonstration in every language that the airline showed it in. I identified the emergency exits nearest to me, made sure that my life jacket was stowed away under my seat, and didn't take my seat belt off once.
When Katniss said, during her games, that stupid people were dangerous, I didn't understand what she meant. In my experience, stupid people, while extremely annoying, have never posed a threat to my safety. Until now.
One of the primary rules while flying is no mobile phones. If it's a fairly long flight, some airlines do allow you to use your phone once the plane reaches it's specific altitude, but during take-off and landing you can absolutely not even have it on. Signals meant for a phone might interfere with those sent to the plane by the Air Traffic Controllers, and I've seen planes crash because of less. So, you can imagine what it was like for me when someone's phone began to ring when my plane was taxiing. I ran through every swear word in my arsenal in my mind. Twice.
Another rule is that your seat back must be in the upright position for take-off and landing. I'm not sure why that is, but I assume it's because if the plane overshoots the runway or something, you don't want your face to hit the back of the chair of the person in front of you. Now, when I was flying from London to Dubai, the person in front of me had reclined his seat. And when the pilot announced that he was preparing for descent, everyone was also asked to put their seats back upright. Of course, the man in front of me didn't, because I just have the worst luck that way. I didn't mind, because I could see the stewardesses doing their round, and I figured they'd correct him. But, no. The stewardess in my section made everyone do it, except the guy in front of me. I can't understand how she missed him; I was gesturing wildly enough to land that plane. It was absurd. And I couldn't even complain, because of my fear of confrontation.
Most important thing, when 30,000 feet above the ground, is DON"T TOUCH THE EMERGENCY EXIT UNLESS IT'S AN EMERGENCY! Someone sitting in front of my did that once, and I swear my heart stopped for a moment. He went back to his reading, eventually, but I spent the rest of the flight imagining me opening the hatch and throwing him out of it. They should consider having a sort of test on basic airplane safety before allowing somebody to sit next to the emergency exit. I mean, I may not know a lot, but I know that fiddling with the emergency exit if there isn't an emergency, usually causes an emergency. I've said typed emergency a lot of times haven't I? I'll stop.
Normally, I would never target a specific group of people and say anything bad about them, but airplane safety is kind of very important to me, so if you have ever done any of the things that I wrote about, you are an idiot, and I hate you. Also, if you were in the Hunger Games, the Careers would get you before the first night was done.
My blog just gets worse with each passing week, doesn't it? Here's a picture.
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N
Like every partially to completely normal person in the world, I have fears. And while some of them are irrational fears, like my fear of complete silence (Sedatephobia), most of them are rational. Perhaps the greatest, most rational of these fears is dying in an airplane crash (Although, and I don't know why I felt the need to point this out, I am not afraid of flying in the least. Just of crashing).
I can put this fear down to one summer, a couple of years go, when I watched a marathon of Air Crash Investigation episodes on Nat Geo with my father. After six hours of watching planes crash in every possible way - engine failure, hijacking, flying into mountains - I turned into the most terribly paranoid flyer.
 |
| Look at this plane breaking apart in the air. |
But for someone so scared of dying in a plane crash, I fly a lot. In the last month alone, I've flown eight times; four times while on vacation, and four times to visit family. Each time, I took every precaution to reduce the chances of my dying in the event of an emergency. I always chose a seat near the window (so that if the plane was hijacked I might go unnoticed, but if the engine caught on fire I'd be one of the first to know) and closer to the front of the plane (so that if the rear half of the fuselage is seperated from the front, like in the picture, I'd be sitting in the part that has engines and wings. Also the cockpit) . I read the safety instructions over and over again (and after eight flights, I think I have them memorised) and I watched the demonstration in every language that the airline showed it in. I identified the emergency exits nearest to me, made sure that my life jacket was stowed away under my seat, and didn't take my seat belt off once.
When Katniss said, during her games, that stupid people were dangerous, I didn't understand what she meant. In my experience, stupid people, while extremely annoying, have never posed a threat to my safety. Until now.
One of the primary rules while flying is no mobile phones. If it's a fairly long flight, some airlines do allow you to use your phone once the plane reaches it's specific altitude, but during take-off and landing you can absolutely not even have it on. Signals meant for a phone might interfere with those sent to the plane by the Air Traffic Controllers, and I've seen planes crash because of less. So, you can imagine what it was like for me when someone's phone began to ring when my plane was taxiing. I ran through every swear word in my arsenal in my mind. Twice.
Another rule is that your seat back must be in the upright position for take-off and landing. I'm not sure why that is, but I assume it's because if the plane overshoots the runway or something, you don't want your face to hit the back of the chair of the person in front of you. Now, when I was flying from London to Dubai, the person in front of me had reclined his seat. And when the pilot announced that he was preparing for descent, everyone was also asked to put their seats back upright. Of course, the man in front of me didn't, because I just have the worst luck that way. I didn't mind, because I could see the stewardesses doing their round, and I figured they'd correct him. But, no. The stewardess in my section made everyone do it, except the guy in front of me. I can't understand how she missed him; I was gesturing wildly enough to land that plane. It was absurd. And I couldn't even complain, because of my fear of confrontation.
Most important thing, when 30,000 feet above the ground, is DON"T TOUCH THE EMERGENCY EXIT UNLESS IT'S AN EMERGENCY! Someone sitting in front of my did that once, and I swear my heart stopped for a moment. He went back to his reading, eventually, but I spent the rest of the flight imagining me opening the hatch and throwing him out of it. They should consider having a sort of test on basic airplane safety before allowing somebody to sit next to the emergency exit. I mean, I may not know a lot, but I know that fiddling with the emergency exit if there isn't an emergency, usually causes an emergency. I've said typed emergency a lot of times haven't I? I'll stop.
Normally, I would never target a specific group of people and say anything bad about them, but airplane safety is kind of very important to me, so if you have ever done any of the things that I wrote about, you are an idiot, and I hate you. Also, if you were in the Hunger Games, the Careers would get you before the first night was done.
My blog just gets worse with each passing week, doesn't it? Here's a picture.
N
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