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Comment by mayd | Hacker News Reader

For all the pontificating in this thread about the need to follow safety advice regarding the wearing of seat belts (and bicycle helmets!) at all times, please note the following from the BBC report:

> the London-Singapore flight suffered a sudden drop as a meal service was under way.

Meal service is probably the single most vulnerable moment to encounter turbulence. How many of the safety-first-at-all-times brigade could dine while tightly strapped to their seat? And no matter how tightly strapped in you are, you could not avoid being splashed by scalding coffee, as some passengers on the in the report were.

Also, the flight time from London to Singapore is 13 hours and 15 minutes (non-stop). How many of you would stay tightly strapped in at all times for that long?

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I always eat with the seatbelt fastened. Why do you need to remove it? Considering the reduced leg space these days, the tray table is relatively within reach.

Besides, I do a 12h route at least once a year, and yes I always have them on unless I'm stretching my legs or going to the toilet because that's the safety recommendation—not because I like it—I don't get your point.

Yeah I'm a little confused by that myself. It's a lap belt - why on earth would you need to even loosen it to eat? Even in business/first class suites, the lap belt is independent of the shoulder harness and you can wear just the lap belt for most of the flight.

I'm flying LHR -> MEL on Friday on Singapore Airlines (on a 777 actually for LHR -> SIN).

I tend to keep my seat belt fairly loosly fastened throughout the flight. At least once I've experienced bad turbulence around where this flight had it - enough to make me hold tightly onto things and for service to be stopped. Usually I need a few trips to the bathroom during the flight though and if nothing else, a chance to stretch my legs (20 hours on planes in 24 hours means walking around is important).

Be interesting to see if anything is different on board (either with crew or fellow pax). RIP to the guy who died.

You don't need to be "tightly strapped". Loosely strapped is good enough. On long haul flights, I see lots of people doing that.

Maybe passengers would buckle their belts at all times, however cabin crew is the most vulnerable during meal service. Also, are the pilots required to wear belts at all times?

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