Preflight Safety Briefings, Bah! Humbug!

[Zeldman]

I usually start the briefing with...... "I am required to say this but you are not required to listen....."

When I explain the use of the fire extinguisher, I always add, "If the pilot is on fire please put him out first..." No one ever hears that.

I once did a charter and one of the passengers was the son of the person that paid for the charter. He was about 11 or 12, and after the briefing I used my totally authoritive voice and told him there will be a test on the safety briefing after we land. He had a really worried look on his face before his dad told him I was joking....

 

[j1b3h0]

My point is that when it hits the fan, they remember none of it, so be prepared for that eventuality.

Hell, I’m lucky if I remember any of it as PIC, when it hits the fan! One thing about emergencies is that there are no two alike, and when one is unfortunate enough to have one, well, YIKES!,What the H%#* is wrong, what am I gonna do with it? They scare the dickens out of me and I’ve had a few.

 

[Zeldman]

well, YIKES!,What the H%#* is wrong, what am I gonna do with it?

I always taught students that the first thing to do in an emergency is to take 5 seconds and panic.....

Go ahead and get the panic mode done and over with, then go ahead and deal with the emergency.

Joking, sort of....

 

[MauleSkinner]

I always taught students that the first thing to do in an emergency is to take 5 seconds and panic.....

Go ahead and get the panic mode done and over with, then go ahead and deal with the emergency.

Joking, sort of....

My first engine failure was among deal in less than 5 seconds...let your brain panic, but make sure you've got the training that can take over in the meantime.

 

[Shepherd]

Why do you see it as all or nothing? If it hits the fan, and there is time, you might tell the person in the passenger seat to open his door a crack, and to evacuate and go away from the plane as soon as it is stopped. Assuming the prop isn't turning, but if it is, also not to walk or run towards the front of the plane.

If there is no time, then nothing is going to help.

Briefing passengers about the need for a "sterile" cockpit, that at times you might have to break in to their conversation and tell them to be quiet is nit rude but necessary, seems like a good thing.

Instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, adapt?

I obviously didn't make my point clearly. Sorry for the confusion.
The "requirements" currently being taught are bureaucratic overkill.
There are things you need to say before you get into the plane. Some are mandated, some make sense to mention.
But my experience has been that when things go wrong, passengers have a tendency to suffer varying degrees of brain freeze.
As the PIC you need to understand that you will be required to explain again some or all the things previously covered.
Focus on the important stuff, keep your voice calm and authoritative, and do what you need to do to stay alive.

 

[JOhnH]

Mine focus on how to work the seatbelts, how to work the door latch(es), don't grab anything, and when to shut up.

I "liked" your post, and I mostly agree with you, but how many people have you found that don't know how to work the seat belt?

 

[asicer]

I "liked" your post, and I mostly agree with you, but how many people have you found that don't know how to work the seat belt?

When you've got 1960's (or is it 1970's?) style shoulder straps instead of more modern inertial reel 3-point belts and your passenger was born after 1980.

I'd imagine 4/5/6/7 point harnesses could confuse a number of people, too.

 

[Matthew]

I "liked" your post, and I mostly agree with you, but how many people have you found that don't know how to work the seat belt?

Some of the belts I fly with are the normal 3-pt. Some have the additional shoulder belt that needs to be clipped in. Some have a 4-pt. Some have the inertia reel, and some have the "pull down on the wide strap to tighten, pull up on the small strap to loosen" variety.

 

[denverpilot]

I always taught students that the first thing to do in an emergency is to take 5 seconds and panic.....

Go ahead and get the panic mode done and over with, then go ahead and deal with the emergency.

Joking, sort of....

Tell ‘em if it’s the engine and they’re below 500’ AGL they have to push first and they only get one second of panic.

 

[35 AoA]

Interesting.....didn't really realize that pax briefings were a legal requirement in GA. I'll say my standard brief to a back seat rider (one who isn't qualified in the aircraft that is) is something along the lines "don't touch anything that has yellow/black stripes on it unless I tell you to, and don't touch anything else either unless I tell you to.....oh and if you have to barf, do it in the bag the PR's gave you, if you spill you will be cleaning it up"

 

[j1b3h0]

I always taught students that the first thing to do in an emergency is to take 5 seconds and panic.....

Go ahead and get the panic mode done and over with, then go ahead and deal with the emergency.

Joking, sort of....

There was a grizzled old ATR Captain who always placed a package of Juicy Fruit gum on the glare shield. He explained to his First Officers “If we really get one of those ‘Oh, my god, the wing just fell off’ moments, the first thing we’re gonna do is open the gum.”

 

[denverpilot]

There was a grizzled old ATR Captain who always placed a package of Juicy Fruit gum on the glare shield. He explained to his First Officers “If we really get one of those ‘Oh, my god, the wing just fell off’ moments, the first thing we’re gonna do is open the gum.”

Must have been @mscard88. Hahaha.

 

[mscard88]

Must have been @mscard88. Hahaha.

It wasn't a package of gum though....

 

[Tantalum]

What the passenger hears is "Blah, blah, blah we're all going to die." Or some variation thereof.

I do my own briefing in my head for power failure on takeoff.. but as far as what I say to non flying pax.. it's pretty basic, and they seem to appreciate it.. I think it legitimizes that I'm a pilot, to a degree. It basically comes down 3 things

-how do you open the door, get out of the seatbelt, hammer in console
-if I am incapacitated, pull the red handle on top forward and down hard
-then pull the red handle in the center console all the way back

 

[asicer]

I do my own briefing in my head for power failure on takeoff.. but as far as what I say to non flying pax.. it's pretty basic, and they seem to appreciate it.. I think it legitimizes that I'm a pilot, to a degree. It basically comes down 3 things

-how do you open the door, get out of the seatbelt, hammer in console
-if I am incapacitated, pull the red handle on top forward and down hard
-then pull the red handle in the center console all the way back

You might want to rearrange the order so that the first bullet point is last. Just sayin'

 

[Tantalum]

You might want to rearrange the order so that the first bullet point is last. Just sayin'

Can you imagine someone unlatching the door and vacating the plane first after I've lost consciousness? What a thought. In all seriousness though, outside of the Archer which has the extra handle above your head the Cessna and Cirrus doors are not hard to figure out. As far as killing the engine before or after the chute comes out, I've had different CFIs and CSIPs tell me conflicting things about the parachute and killing the engine

Lately I've been focusing my preflight brief on pull the chute first, then pull the red center console (mixture) handle back all the way. Figuring, if they remember anything then they're still more likely to survive with a running engine and a parachute deployed than with a dead engine and no parachute. Eventually they'd hopefully realize something is amiss and at the minimum turn the key off even if they forget the mixture leaning part

In reality, pilot incapacitation that severe is probably exceedingly rare (not impossible), but rare

 

[WannFly]

Seat belts & doors...my Maule had an A.D. that required a NO SMOKING placard, so that took care of that.

I agree...passengers aren't going to be able to remember anything you tell them fewer than 20 times, so I kept briefing them every flight. When I gave aerobatic rides, I was pretty well resigned to the fact that if we had to use the parachutes, my passenger was most likely dead unless I could climb out on the wing, unstrap him, lift him out of the cockpit, and throw him away from the airplane while holding on to the D-ring myself. But I still gave the briefing on the outside chance that any of it would stick when the time came.

on that note.... during an aerobatic flight, if you as a PIC decides its time to quit, it must be in a pretty bad attitude already... what is the correct way of getting the hell out?

 

[RyanB]

on that note.... during an aerobatic flight, if you as a PIC decides its time to quit, it must be in a pretty bad attitude already... what is the correct way of getting the hell out?

The brief in the Decathlon for such a situation is to pull the emergency release pin on the door and then ‘dive away’ from the spar on the aircraft. Once clear of the airplane and stabilized in free fall—PULL THE D RING!

 

[WannFly]

The brief in the Decathlon for such a situation is to pull the emergency release pin on the door and then ‘dive away’ from the spar on the aircraft. Once clear of the airplane and stabilized in free fall—PULL THE D RING!

yah I am having hard time processing that instruction sitting at 1 G....

 

[Matthew]

I asked one of my glider flying buddies a similar question as I watched him ooze into his glider. I asked him how he would ever be able to bail. His answer, "An emergency will make you able to do all sorts of things."

 

[MauleSkinner]

on that note.... during an aerobatic flight, if you as a PIC decides its time to quit, it must be in a pretty bad attitude already... what is the correct way of getting the hell out?

If I decided to quit, it was because the airplane was coming apart (not gonna happen in the Stearmans I was flying) or my feet were on fire.