Behind the scenes of flight safety: What we learned with British Airways

Meon’s Repatriation Manager, Christine Millson, took 12 of our clients on a British Airways Flight Safety Training course. She tells us here what happened.

Next time you see flight attendants gazing out the window on take-off, don’t assume they’re admiring the view. They’re not; they’re checking to ensure all is ok with the aircraft and listening for unusual noise or vibrations at the same time.

It’s all part of the skillset we often don’t recognise or just take for granted, as I learned when we visited British Airways Flight Safety Training at Heathrow. With me were a dozen of our medical repatriation and business travel clients, who agreed it was an eye-opening – if sobering – experience.

We learned that 75% of air accidents happen on take off or landing. With that in mind, we were taught how door slides are used for evacuation. We all know the slides double as life rafts if there is a landing on water, but our group was then told how to assemble the canopy that encloses them and where to find the supplies that would keep us going for 48 hours at sea. There’s only enough for 48 hours for a reason, and that is because tracking devices mean the raft can be found anywhere in the world within that timescale.

We also took part in an emergency drill where the cabin filled with smoke – thankfully more school disco than toxic – and we had to evacuate. Airlines are regulated to evacuate abled-bodied passengers and crew in 90 seconds if there is an emergency. While the crew are trained to empty the plane, within the regulatory confines their job is not to rescue any passengers, including those with limited mobility. This is managed by the emergency services on the ground who take over the rescue efforts.

The smoke, sounds and noise were very realistic, as was seeing the transition from the crew being nice and smiley to them becoming an authoritative figure to ensure everyone is evacuated in a safe and timely manner. In the kerfuffle, I tried putting on the life vest, but I got it wrong three times!

Thankfully, our trainer, who had been flying with BA for 44 years, had only had two evacuations in her career. The afternoon taught us how serious a fire onboard can be, particularly once airborne; the crew has two minutes to get it under control, or the plane has to land as soon as possible.

The trainer also brought home the dangers of lithium batteries. Just think how many devices you carried on your last trip, including your laptop, phone, Apple watch, headphones, charger, etc. These are the biggest source of fire on an aircraft and there’s a reason why you’re told not to move your seat if you drop your phone because it can crush the device and spark a blaze.

I’ve gained a whole new respect for cabin crew skills since this course. Most of us just want to get the safety briefing out of the way and get on with the in-flight entertainment, but I’ll be taking it more seriously from now on. Even something as mundane as demonstrating how to use the seatbelt has its purpose; a car seat belt is different from one on an aircraft and if people go into panic mode, they can easily get confused. We were told that passengers should ideally connect and release their seatbelt three times to create muscle memory of how it’s done.

There were a lot of things that made you think, ‘Oh, that’s why they say that.’ Every one of us was surprised at how well organised it was and what goes into the safety of flying. The BA team were legendary and deserves all the praise and recognition for a totally amazing, enjoyable and informative day, for which they train on a daily basis.

It’s given me a completely different level of respect for the crew in terms of what they have to go through. It’s not just about serving you chicken or beef.

The Travel Unit Technical Manager from a global Assistance Group was one of Meon’s special guests. She said: “We loved it, for me the best bit was the life raft; we had to pretend to be the crew evacuating everyone.”

“The steward was a gentle person, but all of a sudden became a different character, which they have to do because people are in shock. There was a lot of shouting.

“The other thing I’ll remember is the brace position. We were told to put our dominant hand – the one you write with – underneath the other because, to put it bluntly, the top hand will probably get broken, and you need to undo the seatbelt buckle.

“The other message was, don’t link hands because fingers will get broken. It was a reality check and it opens your eyes to the possibilities of what might happen. We all joked that we would never ignore the inflight safety briefing ever again.”

Christine and the Meon team would like to thank British Airways for hosting our clients at their dedicated Vanguard training facility near London Heathrow and for participating in safety training exercises, whilst also witnessing flight simulation and service training for the variety of aircraft types flown short and long-haul.

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