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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

Life jackets seem like they’d be problematic in an enclosed cabin where their use is if you’ve crashed and are taking on water. That’s a bit different compared to a pleasure craft or other vessel that has an outside deck and likely more time to react.

But I don’t really know things. Perhaps most float plane emergencies that require life jackets don’t suffer from my perception of the issue.

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Indeed, passengers inflating their life jackets too early directly caused many of the deaths on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 [0]. This is why the modern safety briefing includes the bit about waiting until you've exited the cabin to inflate your life jacket.

I have no clue how this applies to floatplanes, though—I'm curious for more details about when the article says "there are approved life jackets which could be used to deal with these circumstances".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961

> I'm curious for more details about when the article says "there are approved life jackets which could be used to deal with these circumstances"

In context, that says:

“Floating and automatically operating life jackets aren’t practical, specifically because of cases like this where the occupants have to dive out of the capsized aircraft in order to escape the cabin. However, there are approved life jackets which could be used to deal with these circumstances.”

So, I guess there are approved life jackets that do not automatically inflate and are neutrally buoyant, thus minimally hindering attempts to leave a submerged plane while wearing one.

Yeah, I guess my main confusion is whether that means a normal (uninflated) airliner life jacket that you're just required to put on pre-emptively, or something more specialized.

"Many of the passengers survived the initial crash, but they had disregarded, did not understand, or did not hear Leul's warning not to inflate their life jackets inside the aircraft, causing them to be pushed against the ceiling of the fuselage by the inflated life jackets when water flooded in. Unable to escape, they drowned."

That seems strange to me. Why would they not simply take off the life jacket and swim out?

The inflatable ones are often designed to be impossible to remove… at least not easily. They inflate into a thing that’s kind of gently choking you.

Definitely far up the list on horrible ways to die.

In my vernacular, I distinguish between "life jackets" and "buoyancy aids". Apparently most people don't.

A buoyancy aid has a foam core, and always provides buoyancy. It's the sort of thing you'd wear while kayaking, but it's far too bulky to want to wear it unless you expect to go in the water.

A life jacket is inflatable, and normally automatic. If you're at risk of falling in, and to do so would be dangerous, you should probably wear one of these -- if you go in the water, it'll inflate automatically. This isn't suitable if you might get wet without wanting the life jacket to inflate, though, and you can get equivalents with manual inflation. The ones you get on aircraft are cheaper than ones you're expected to re-use by wearing multiple times but in neither case will you inflate it multiple times.

The downside of a manually-inflated life-jacket is that you need to be conscious to inflate it. The downside of an automatic life-jacket is that if you get wet, it'll inflate. The downside of the buoyancy aid is that it's always bulky, but on the other hand if you're wearing it, it'll always work.

Which vernacular is that?

In boating a life jacket does not need to be inflatable. https://uscgboating.org/recreational-boaters/life-jacket-wea... says:

> There are four basic design types: Inherent, Inflatable, Hybrid, and Special Purpose.

> There are two main classes of PFDs.

> * Those which provide face up in-water support to the user regardless of physical conditions (lifejackets).

> * Those which require the user to make swimming and other postural movements to position the user with the face out of the water (buoyancy aid).

It mentions both "Foam filled lifejackets" and "Inflatable lifejackets".

Seems like it's maybe a UK thing, and my (fairly limited) water-sports experience is kayaking and small sailboats.

Isn't the English language fun?

Interesting! I checked out what the RNLI had to say at https://rnli.org/safety/lifejackets and that page only mentions lifejackets along with gas.

However, if you "Download our lifejackets and buoyancy aids guide as a PDF (3.48MB)" at https://rnli.org/-/media/rnli/downloads/1983319_choose_it_we... you'll read "Children’s lifejackets may rely on foam, air and foam, or CO2 only to provide buoyancy" and "Air and foam or CO2 lifejackets meet the requirements of a level 150 lifejacket and are suitable for offshore use. Normally, foam lifejackets provide level 100 buoyancy and are suitable for inshore use."

A further search of the RNLI site finds https://rnli.org/magazine/magazine-featured-list/2018/june/t... with "The foam-based Beaufort lifejacket [of the 1970s] upped the buoyancy level, allowing a crew member to also support the person being rescued." but by the 1990s "The bulkier gear of all-weather lifeboat crews meant they needed a more compact lifejacket, which inflated automatically on hitting the water using a built-in gas canister."

Since I learned my small watercraft skills in the warm waters of Florida, instead of chilly UK, I can see how that would make a difference.

I’ve heard that distinction used in the UK.

The other down side of buoyancy aids I was told about is that many (most?) will not turn you face up if you are unconscious. Gives useful extra mobility for sports but can be fatal if the wearer is unconscious.

It depends on the design of the specific device. A buoyancy aid with a foam collar will do it, but is less comfortable to wear. With an inflatable life jacket, to collar is not noticeable until it inflates.

It sounds like the two surviving passengers would have died if they had life jackets on. I can’t imagine getting out of an inverted, flooded 185 cabin with a life jacket on.

I think there was some sense to not requiring life jackets on seaplanes. They’re much more confined spaces than most pleasure boats, not to mention that you’re usually on a boat rather than in it. The flooding is also usually just about instant as the airplane rolls over.

Seems common for reactive legislation to not actually fix the situation that’s being reacted to. Requiring shoulder harnesses during takeoff and landing (which is the case in the US) would have actually kept the deceased passenger conscious to escape, as said in the report. But they didn’t change that law.

My reflex is to never mandate safety procedures. To put it simply, why should the state use force to mandate something like safety. The implication being if someone refuses the force of the state is used on them… which is definitely not good or improving safety.

Mandating the seatbelts exist, sure. Mandating people wear them? Idk about that.

In the case of tractors for instance, wearing a seatbelt is downright dangerous. You cannot jump out then, and will be killed by a tractor if it flips.

> In the case of tractors for instance, wearing a seatbelt is downright dangerous. You cannot jump out then, and will be killed by a tractor if it flips.

The "proper" solution would be to have a rollcage so that even a flipped tractor does not crush its occupants. Not having a roll cage (presumably to save $) is a result of weaker/less mandated safety procedures already. Cars have a roof crush test. The solution isn't "jump out when big machine starts tipping", it's "protect the humans in the machine".

[0] - https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/02/rollover-101/ind...

I believe that Rollover Protection Systems (ROPS) have been mandatory on new tractors up to a certain weight for quite some time now.

Everyone ends up paying for that, in the form of insurance rates.

Not only that but I think there’s also a meaningful quality to living in a society with excessive avoidable deaths. I personally think it contributes to a “shields up, guard up” culture that I’ve experienced and found exhausting.

And healthcare insurance if you live in the US, and regardless of where you live it clogs up your entire healthcare system as Jimmy-no-seatbelt flies into the trauma center.

In countries with universal healthcare you pay too, it's just called "taxes" instead.

That's an argument against a state-run healthcare system. It gives the state reason to classify arbitrary things as "increases the cost of insurance" and prohibit them.

They could just not cover injuries where a seatbelt isn’t warn.

That said, we have evidence that seatbelt wearing didn’t impact insurance rates. Literally look at the rates over time, even after these laws were enacting, insurance rates rose fast as ever

That's not how emergency room care works. It doesn't matter whether it's covered or not, you're going to get treated; quite likely the hospital ends up eating the bill if insurance doesn't pay.

It's not just you and your passengers that are less safe when you drive without seatbelts.

If you have to make a sudden sharp swerve when driving centrifugal forces try to move you from in front of the steering wheel, which can make it harder for you to remain in control. That increases the danger to nearby vehicles and pedestrians (and to nearby property that you might hit).

Seat and shoulder belts help keep you in place in front of the steering wheel.

Mandating the wearing of seatbelts isn’t entirely about protecting the person wearing the seatbelt. An unbelted occupant becomes a projectile in a sufficiently violent collision, and that projectile can cause harm to people outside of the vehicle.

Heck, I recently saw a video (may be an old one) of a driver who fell out of his car while showing off his acceleration. Now the entire car is an uncontrolled projectile.

Interesting that pleasure craft have dead-man switches you can optionally affix. They’re also designed to turn anti-clockwise forever if nobody is at the wheel.

I guess because there aren’t seatbelts and these boats are usually open-top.

Isn't this dangerous to the person falling off (assuming no dead-man switch)? You fall off only to be run over by your own craft one turn later... It does mean that the boat won't run away far though, so there's that.

> pleasure craft... turn anti-clockwise forever if nobody is at the wheel.

That's probably a result of the "paddle wheel" effect of the propellor rotating through the water: a bug not a feature.

Or harm to other people inside the vehicle.

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