from Hacker News

How the airline industry got wise to seat belts

by NotSwift on 8/30/21, 7:40 PM with 76 comments

• by gumby on 8/30/21, 9:04 PM

  Having been once in a aircraft-damaging emergency landing* decades ago I am surprised lap only belts are still the norm. There's a reason the crew has four point restraints, and I'd like to have it too.

  * I won't call it a crash since the aircraft made it to an airport and to a runway. We had equipment failure in flight so there was plenty of time for the flight attendants to review our crash positions, confiscate shoes, move people around etc. Everybody survived and I think everybody survived the emergency slides intact. Very exciting to mid-20s me.

• by actually_a_dog on 8/31/21, 4:37 AM

  Here's a not so fun fact: seat belts do cause internal injuries, though infrequently. Here is a case study of two instances: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4818312/

  That does not change the fact that seat belts save lives, however: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/occupant-protectio...

• by sklargh on 8/30/21, 8:47 PM

  Recent failures by Boeing aside, the amount of thought that goes into the holistic safety of commercial aircraft is astounding. It kind of blows my mind how hardened a typical passenger cabin is to fire, not to mention other hazards.

• by IdontRememberIt on 8/30/21, 9:06 PM

  During my last flights, I always got 3 points seatbelts. Surprisingly, my 4yo was not allowed to buckle it during landing and takeoff.