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[shahrukh]

Flying can make up a huge part of our lives, especially if it’s a part of your profession. The following question was asked on Reddit sometime at the end of last year:



Flight Attendants, Pilots, or Engineers, what are secrets that passengers don’t know when you ride on planes or things you can get for free from the cabin or crew?

There were many responses, but the following 20 tips were the ones we found the most interesting.

[shahrukh]

1. The truth about oxygen masks.



"That if the oxygen masks drop down, you only have about 15 minutes of oxygen from the point of pulling them down. However, that is more than enough time for the pilot to take us to a lower altitude where you can breathe normally"

"More important – at altitude, you have 15-20 seconds before you pass out. Put yours on first, then do your kids. Passing out for a few seconds won’t harm the kids."

[shahrukh]

2. Why they dim the lights when the plane is landing.



"When a plane is landing at night, they dim the interior lights incase you need to evacuate upon landing... your eyes are already adjusted to the darkness so you’ll be able to see better once outside the plane."

[shahrukh]

3. The reason you sometimes experience a hard landing.



"When you experience a hard landing in bad weather it wasn’t because of a lack of pilot skills but it is in fact intentional. If the runway is covered in water the airplane has to touch down hard in order to puncture the water layer and prevent aqua planing."

[shahrukh]

4. You can unlock lavatories from the outside.



"...There is usually a lock mechanism concealed behind the no smoking badge on the door. Just lift the flap up and slide the bolt to unlock."

[shahrukh]

5. What happens when an airplane gets a bomb threat.



"I have a friend who’s a commercial pilot. Around five years ago he was doing a flight from LA to Tokyo when an anonymous caller phoned in a bomb threat while they were over the middle of the Pacific. Apparently they have procedures for this kind of thing, but there was nothing anyone could do in this situation except stay calm and not alert the passengers (obviously). He said for the rest of the flight every bump of turbulence made his adrenaline spike. They took this case especially seriously because there was a group of foreign dignitaries sitting in the first class cabin."

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