What is wrong in this picture from Southwest 1380?

The Flight Detective
a group of people sitting on an airplane with a tube in their mouth

There is something completely wrong with the picture above, which was taken on Southwest Flight 1380. In case you don’t know, an engine issue resulted in a window being broken and an explosive decompression of the cabin.

This of course meant passenger oxygen masks deployed as the aircraft was above 14,000 feet. Marty Martinez was on board and took to social media to document the event as it occurred. His picture reveals one glaring mistake.

Passengers Doing It Wrong

Oxygen masks are there to provide you with breathable air while the aircraft descends to around 10,000 feet. At that point, you can take the masks off and breathe normally.

When the masks deploy, you should pull the mask towards you and this activates the flow of oxygen. Next, you put the mask over your nose and mouth and put the elastic strap around your head so the mask is held against your face.

Not only is this shown in pictures on the safety card, it is demonstrated at the start of each flight either by the cabin crew or on a safety video. There is no real reason not to know how to do this.

In the picture from Southwest 1380, the three main people are holding the masks to their mouths, with two of them not even using the elastic to hold it in place. It is just wrong! What part of “put the mask over your nose and mouth and secure it with the elastic strap” is confusing?

Why Don’t People Listen To Safety Demonstrations?

While breathing through your mouth and holding the mask there will work perfectly well, it is not how it is designed to work. Your time of useful consciousness can be under a minute at the altitudes today’s commercial aircraft regularly fly, as you can see in the following table.

It baffles me why people can’t take five minutes out of checking their social media to pay attention at the start of the flight. I have flown hundreds of times and I always watch and listen to the demonstration, even when it is the same one I have seen countless times.

Overall Thoughts

Passengers getting it wrong is not new. Whenever an aircraft experiences an emergency evacuation, social media videos usually show people dragging their cabin bags along after them. You are specifically instructed not to take anything with you in an emergency, but they still do!

While flying is safe, one of the reasons is from all the learning through accidents over the years. The safety demonstration says what it says due to long hard experience. My thoughts are with the family of the lady who died in this event.

Do you pay attention to the safety video when you fly? If not, why not? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by Marty Martinez.
Time of Useful Consciousness from SKYbrary.

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Ryan

Those masks are so small, I honestly think it would be hard to fit it over my nose simultaneously with my mouth. And so would a lot of other adults especially depending on facial structure. It doesn’t really matter though, your body will just naturally breathe in through the mouth if need be. As long as O2 is getting to either orifice you’ll get what you need.

Gre

Wow, how do you know when the photo was taken during the 24 minute incident? You are criticizing passengers (and indirectly the crew) by making a huge assumption about the time of the photo. Also, how would a passenger know that 10,000 feet is the safe altitude without supplemental O2, as you assume. Or that that’s their current altitude.. a bit risky to rely on some screen in front of you, if it’s even working. When landing in this situation, I would not want to be tethered to the strong plastic air line by putting the mask straps around my… Read more »

Gre

Thanks and thanks for the photo, maybe your postings will get the industry to make a more intuitive mask design.. I bet it’s a cost and cleanliness design right now.. a paper cup design. You guys and gals who write the FF blogs are like our front line, who are trying to make things better for the rest of us plebeians. Thanks.

Nickie

I thought they were supposed to go over your nose and mouth, but they are so small that I don’t see how they could possibly fit around both. Were these tested on normal size adults?

DaninMCI

It’s possible that this photo wasn’t taken until the plane was close to the ground and oxygen not required. That is just a guess of course.

Jas

Don’t forget he also took out his laptop after the depressurization. I mean, lets just add to the amount of projectiles flying around the cabin when the plane goes down.
People just don’t think. Getting that interview with CNN is just that much more important.

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