Glad I'm not a passenger

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
30,686
Talking of transportation safety:confused:
The subject in the news here is installing seat belts in school buses.
Something I have often pondered and wonder why it has not (permanently) been instituted.
And that is having all public transport seating facing backwards, especially aircraft..
I remember one of my first airline flights ever back in the 60's where BOAC had a fleet of turbo-prop Viscounts, and in these aircraft, the seats faced backwards, I imagine the idea fell through, as the rest of their fleet reverted to forward facing.
Personalty it doesn't bother me if it proves to be safer, and in a seat at 35,000 ft, you cannot tell which way you are going.
Don't Astronauts face backwards on re-entry?
Max.
 
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SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,494
Indeed the landing capsules do (not the Shuttle) and it IS safer but people don't "like" it and are uncomfortable with it. There was a seatbelt study done long ago (if my memory serves me correctly) as to seatbelts on school buses and it was determined that it was not needed. Of course, the school bus is designed for durability and not comfort or extreme safety. Still, they should be implemented (and safer seats installed) but getting kids to use them... Same for any interstate transit bus, getting them on local city buses or commuter trains the seatbelts would also probably not be used by riders.
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,783
On the other hand, if seatbelts were installed on buses, and people did not use them, it could help protect the transport company from liability in case of an accident... just a thought...
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,892
Talking of transportation safety:confused:
The subject in the news here is installing seat belts in school buses.
Something I have often pondered and wonder why it has not (permanently) been instituted.
And that is having all public transport seating facing backwards, especially aircraft..
I remember one of my first airline flights ever back in the 60's where BOAC had a fleet of turbo-prop Viscounts, and in these aircraft, the seats faced backwards, I imagine the idea fell through, as the rest of their fleet reverted to forward facing.
Personalty it doesn't bother me if it proves to be safer, and in a seat at 35,000 ft, you cannot tell which way you are going.
Don't Astronauts face backwards on re-entry?
Max.
Now that you mention it and I never gave it much thought the only aircraft I have ever flown in seating backward facing were military. Arrested carrier landings in the old Gruman C1 Trader and C2 Greyhound. Weird sensation when you catch the wire. We also had an old four engine piston type and I forget what those were but facing rearward was how they were configured. When they had seats anyway. :) I remember, it was the old C54 Skymaster or actually we called it the R5D. Interesting as the old C47 (Commercial DC3) had forward facing seats when they had seats. No memories of anything commercial, non-military having rear facing seats.

The school buss issue comes up every now and then. Initially it was a cost factor but when you figure the cost of a brand new bus the belts aren't that much. The subject comes up every time a school bus is involved in an accident. Most school districts around me now get buses with belts when they order new buses. It's like a transitional thing as they are not installing belts in existing buses.

Ron
 
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JohnInTX

Joined Jun 26, 2012
4,787
Sometimes, it doesn't go as planned, even in Texas..
The purpose of the flight was to capture a nilgai bull with a net gun. While maneuvering at low altitude, the gunner fired the net at a running 600-pound bull. The net deployed and caught the skid of the helicopter as well as the bull. The bull continued to run dragging the helicopter down resulting in the helicopter's collision with terrain. The helicopters fuselage, main rotor, and tail boom were substantially damaged, and the pilot and gunner sustained minor injuries. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures contributed to the accident.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,494
!?!? Please don't tell there was NOT another airport in Mexico that they could land at or anywhere closer to Mexico City than Amsterdam???
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
I saw that report. Apparently, the main reason it was not allowed to land in the US or Canada was because of the horse cargo. Now, both Canada and the US have plenty of horses and that per se should not have been an issue. So my mind turned immediately to the USDA and its Canadian counterpart. I'll bet there is some sort of quarantine based on the origin of the horses.

A classic example occurred in the US in the 1880's. Texas cattle carried a silent infection and when herded North to states such as Missouri and Illinois, that infection caused widespread devastation of local herds ("Texas fever"). The culprit was traced to a Babesia species (a tick born protozoan, think of mosquito-born malaria) to which the Texas longhorns (Spanish heritage) were resistant, but the northern herds of European heritage cattle were susceptible. Those type of infections are difficult to eradicate. The USDA has tremendous power, because a small error can have enormous economic consequences. I have dealt with it. I suspect the Canadian counterpart is similar.

I wish our news media were as interested in those details as I am.

Here are a couple of other stories aboutaircraft with horse being denied landing privileges:
https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/the-problem-with-horses-in-the-hold/https://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/11/klm.flight/index.html
Maybe tomorrow, we will learn the details.
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,892
!?!? Please don't tell there was NOT another airport in Mexico that they could land at or anywhere closer to Mexico City than Amsterdam???
I think sometimes it is a matter of cost. The KLM fight could have landed easily in Canada but the flight had live animals on board. Any landing would have likely involved quarantine of any live animals. Can't begin to tell you what taking a dog from the US to Europe and back years ago involved. I also haven't a clue what restrictions Canada places on live (heck or even dead) animals in customs. Even if the plane never leaves the tarmac. While it is a perfectly good flyable plane nothing says it will stay that way. Pretty sure KLM did a cost assessment and figured it was less costly to just return the plane to Amsterdam. It also gets expensive to land a plane at an airport rather than where it was scheduled to land.

<Edit> jpanhalt beat me to that theory. :) </EDIT>


Just My Guesses....
Ron
 

Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,783
!?!? Please don't tell there was NOT another airport in Mexico that they could land at or anywhere closer to Mexico City than Amsterdam???
Another question I have is, how much fuel did the plane have left when it was finally able to land?
 

justtrying

Joined Mar 9, 2011
439
I saw that report. Apparently, the main reason it was not allowed to land in the US or Canada was because of the horse cargo. Now, both Canada and the US have plenty of horses and that per se should not have been an issue. So my mind turned immediately to the USDA and its Canadian counterpart. I'll bet there is some sort of quarantine based on the origin of the horses.

A classic example occurred in the US in the 1880's. Texas cattle carried a silent infection and when herded North to states such as Missouri and Illinois, that infection caused widespread devastation of local herds ("Texas fever"). The culprit was traced to a Babesia species (a tick born protozoan, think of mosquito-born malaria) to which the Texas longhorns (Spanish heritage) were resistant, but the northern herds of European heritage cattle were susceptible. Those type of infections are difficult to eradicate. The USDA has tremendous power, because a small error can have enormous economic consequences. I have dealt with it. I suspect the Canadian counterpart is similar.

I wish our news media were as interested in those details as I am.

Here are a couple of other stories aboutaircraft with horse being denied landing privileges:
https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/the-problem-with-horses-in-the-hold/https://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/11/klm.flight/index.html
Maybe tomorrow, we will learn the details.
This is quite interesting: https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/the-problem-with-horses-in-the-hold/
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,892
Wow, saw other images on the morning news this morning. The real bummer was the hour it hit while people were sleeping and many had no clue. Just during the morning news every time they went back to the story the death count was increasing. Once daylight finally arrived they began to see the full destructive path.

Ron
 
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