10 airline secrets air-hostesses don’t ever tell you

you can be a frequent flier but even you can not realize these secrets and techniques approximately touring in an aircraft. thanks to a Quora thread, we realize simply why lights are dimmed in the course of landing and take-off or whether or not your mobile cellphone may want to indeed reason the plane to crash, or just how a good deal oxygen can your masks provide you. Get set to have your thoughts blown:

1. Here’s why the cabin lights are dimmed during takeoff and landing

If you’re traveling post sundown, you’d have noticed that the cabin lights are dimmed during takeoff and landing. The reason behind this is breathtakingly simple. In case of an emergency evacuation your eyes would have adjusted to the darkness outside. So the moment you step out of the aircraft you won’t be blinded by the darkness.

2. There is a reason why they ask you to turn off your mobile phones

Here’s the thing, your electronics don’t cause any disturbance whatsoever to the airplane’s signal, the Quora thread points out neither do they have the capability of bringing the plane down (unless of course you do that after hacking into the system using the plane’s Wi-Fi). But you can do the pilots a huge favor by turning it off anyway because its signal annoys the hell out of the pilots during take-off or landing. If there are 100 phones that are on that makes the job hundred times worse. Imagine someone talking away loudly while you’re trying to get some work done? Now imagine a hundred people doing that. Don’t be a douche; turn off that phone.

3. The headphones that come wrapped up in a bag aren’t new

Remember the headphones that you got in Kingfisher Airlines? Or the ones you still get in Air India or Jet Airways? Yeah, they aren’t brand new at all. Most of them are cleaned and packed for reuse.

4. There’s just 15 minutes of oxygen in those masks

Ah, the part that you never listen to — in-flight safety drill! If you have been in one of those flights where the oxygen masks have indeed dropped you are a rare commodity. But did you know that the masks have all of 15 minutes of oxygen supply? From the time you pull them down (if you’ve ever heard the safety drill announcement you’d know you have to tug at them) the masks supply oxygen for just 15 minutes. But during that time your pilot would have flown to a lower altitude where you can breathe normally.

5. Those lavatories can be unlocked from the outside!

Of course this is done as part of safety measures — in case someone dies or gets hurt or, erm, has been in there for a long time — you need to have a facility to unlock the door from outside. So the next time you’re planning to join the mile-high club, be warned.

6. It is advisable to lock your carry-on luggage

Stealing carry-on luggage (or from it) is not uncommon. You don’t always get storage space in the cabin right above your seat or in the line of your vision. Anything can happen in the duration of your flight — someone might steal from it, or worse, put something in it — so it is best that you lock your carry-on luggage.

7. If lightning strikes… you feel nothing!

Dreamliners and Boeing Arbus 350s serve as Faraday Cages. The space inside the metal — the one that you occupy — is safe from electric currents. If lightning strikes, it leaves almost miniscule damage to the plane itself and absolutely zero damage to the people inside it.

8. Even if the engines fail, your plane can glide for a long, long time.

According to the Quora thread an aircraft can glide six nautical miles for every 5000 feet. Effectively, if you are flying at, let’s say 35,000 feet, your aircraft can easily glide for anywhere up to 42 miles without any power. Plummeting, like they show in the movies, doesn’t happen as often as you fear.

9. If your plane lands hard it doesn’t mean your pilot is incompetent.

You can expect hard landings during the monsoon or bad weather. Pilots have to touch down really hard so as to puncture the water layer that covers the runway and prevent the plane from skidding. So don’t judge your pilot by o.n.e. hard landing.

10. The chances of a mid-air collision are very, very low!

Typically aircraft flying eastwards fly at odd altitudes (35,000, 37,000 feet etc) and those flying west do so at even altitudes (ie 36,000, 38,000 feet etc). So the chances of your plane crashing right into another one head on are almost negligible (unless done so with the express purpose of crashing). Vanity Fair journalist William Langewiesche in his article, The Devil at 37,000 feet, compares the odds with that of two arrows in opposing directions colliding. Even if you did assign identical flight paths to the two arrows they would pass some distance apart simply because of the flight’s inaccuracies. So take a chill pill, don’t panic, sit back and enjoy the flight.