“Do you really believe we announce these rules just for fun?!” exclaims outraged flight attendant Sadie Cooper, clearly shocked at the recklessness of the injured passenger. “We have saved many lives with these rules!”
Nothing much is known about the course of the accident, apart from his final cry of, “bugger – I should have paid attention!” to which there were apparently several witnesses.
The only known facts are that at the time of the accident, the man’s seat back was not in an upright position and his tray table had been illegally folded down.
An eyewitness recounts that even at the start of the flight, the young man had not fastened his seat belt and probably only survived the accident because he was lucky. No other passengers were injured since they diligently adhered to each and every one of the instructions in the safety announcement.
Time and again, there are passengers who do not pay attention to these vital announcements, much to the chagrin of cabin crews worldwide. Most recently, a woman fell off a plane belonging to Spanish airline Spanair in 2015 – she had forgotten to set her mobile phone to aeroplane mode. Meanwhile, easyJet has responded to the accident by announcing that cabin crew will now include stories like these as a warning to passengers in their safety announcements.
fed, ssi, dan; picture [M]: Guilhem Velut, Martin Thomas; first published 2017-10-24
Read the German version HERE.
