Statistics For Every Flight Attendant And Passenger

Did you know that more than three million people around the world fly on commercial aircraft every day?

Did you know that Boeing aircraft state that, In the United States, it's 22 times safer flying in a commercial jet than traveling by car, according to a 1993-95 study by the U.S. National Safety Council. The study compares accident fatalities per million passenger-miles traveled. The number of U.S. highway deaths in a typical six-month period of about 21,000 roughly equals all commercial jet fatalities worldwide since the dawn of jet aviation four decades ago. In fact, fewer people have died in commercial airplane accidents in America over the past 60 years than are killed in U.S. auto accidents in a typical three-month period.

Did you know that aircraft have brakes on their wings?
Aircraft have what they call lift dumpers on their wings that spring up into the air upon landing. This does two things. One, it creates resistance to the oncoming airflow and the disturbance that it creates causes drag. Two, the lift dumpers gradually nullify the lift component of the wing the further they are raised into the air steam. On landing this transfers the aircraft weight from the wings directly to the ground enabling maximum braking effectiveness from the wheel brakes.

These lift dumpers have three protective security safety deployment requirements before they will fully engage to avoid inadvertent full deployment in the air. If of course they did fully deploy in mid air, the aircraft would be in a serious flight situation. The result would defiantly be earth bound!

Did you know that Aircraft are frequently hit by lightning?
In fact, aircraft are designed around the fact that they will be hit by lightning and have special electrical discharge wicks to dissipate the electrical energy from the aircraft when this does happen. These discharge wicks are on the trailing edge of the ailerons, rudder and elevator control surfaces. They are approximately 12 to 20cms long. Without the discharge wicks to disperse the electrical current there would be a substantial risk that the control surface linkages could be welded together resulting in nil response to pilot maneuver commands resulting in a possible catastrophic situation.

Did you know that warm air from the engine is used to heat up the wings?
When outside air temperatures fall below zero and there are atmospheric conditions conducive to icing, then heated air from the engines is drawn from them and routed along the leading edges of the wings. This is to keep the wing above zero degrees so as to prevent the build up of ice on the wings.

Ice formulation on a wing severely disrupts the flow of air over it affecting the capacity of the wing to produce lift. If this was allowed to go to the extreme the lift component of the wing would fall below the point required for the aircraft to fly and the aircraft would literally fall out of the sky. The ice also dangerously adds to the weight of the aircraft which could develop to a catastrophic state itself.