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Comment by MaKey | Hacker News Reader

I find it hard to believe this story really happened the way you are presenting it. "We glided until we landed" makes it sound like the plane ran out of fuel - did it really? It would be hard to hide such an incident. Your strong language ("lied", "illegal", "absolutely inappropriate" further down) makes me think there is more nuance to this.

Edit: "with all lights off" - turning off the lights for a landing is regular procedure, nothing unusual.

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Your intuition is correct. The story as told by the parent is likely just due to a misunderstanding (or just lack of knowledge) of 1) the pilot's words over the PA and 2) standard procedures used in commercial air travel.

Especially in emergencies. Lights are turned off so passenger eyes can get used to the dim light and see the exit lights (which are not bright) better.

... and if it's dark outside, their eyes are adjusted to see in the darkness once they've evacuated outside the plane too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36854536

> turning off the lights for a landing is regular procedure, nothing unusual.

The lights were off for about an hour as we glided toward Pittsburgh.

> Your strong language

My assessment is that I was told my luggage would continue on to DC without me if I didn't board in an attempt to get the plane leaving as soon as possible after refueling. I didn't care enough to get back on, and learned the following day that they had actually removed my luggage before departure.

Your place is not gonna glide unpowered for an hour.

Exactly, the record is 19 minutes (Air Transat 236).

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