How to Escape From a Ditched Plane

Nov. 25, 2002 -- The last time you were on an airplane, did you pay attention to the flight attendants' safety routine at the beginning of the flight? Did you check to see where the nearest emergency exit was?

The instructions may sound familiar from flight to flight, but safety experts say it is important to listen each and every time. Doing so can be the difference between life and death in a survivable plane crash.

When a USAir Fokker F-28 skidded off the runway during a snowstorm at New York's La Guardia Airport in 1992 and plunged into the water, 27 people died but 24 managed to get out alive. In 1996, 50 people survived when a hijacked Ethiopian airliner crashed into the Indian Ocean near the Comoro Islands off the African coast; 125 people died.

Flight safety experts recommend that air passengers take these steps every time they fly:

Listen to the safety instructions. Listen carefully to the flight attendants' safety instructions and study the safety card in the seat pocket. Find the two closest exits. Note the location of the nearest emergency exit to your seat: that will be your primary exit. Choose the next closest as your secondary exit, in case you cannot reach the primary exit. Plan your route. Before takeoff, create a picture in your head of the route you would take to each exit in the event of a crash, when you might be disoriented and in darkness. In each case, count the number of rows from your seat to the exit, and remember the number.

If the plane ditches in water, safety expert Richard McInnis recommends following this procedure:

Brace yourself. Assume the brace position, bending down with your head close to your knees. Hold the position until the violent movement that accompanies the initial impact has finished. Take a breath before the moment of impact. Don't undo your seatbelt immediately. Take a breath and stay strapped in your seatbelt for a moment while you get your bearings. Fight your instinct to get free immediately — it is easier to orient yourself while you remain in your seat. "Anchoring maintains our perspective within the airplane," says McInnis.