Pan Am Plane Crash That Inspired Modern Safety Briefings Found After 74 Years
(Wednesday July 22, 2026 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
from the safety-from-tragedy dept.)
- Reference: 0184593614
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/07/23/033235/pan-am-plane-crash-that-inspired-modern-safety-briefings-found-after-74-years
- Source link:
Longtime Slashdot reader [1]BeaverCleaver shares a report from the BBC:
> The wreckage of a Pan American Airways plane has been [2]found 74 years after it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in a crash that prompted mandatory airline safety briefings. The Clipper Endeavor was found 2,000ft (610m) below sea level off the coast of Puerto Rico with a sonar-equipped drone. It went down on April 11, 1952, following multiple-engine failure shortly after take-off.
>
> Everyone onboard survived the impact -- but passengers struggled to locate life vests and rafts as the plane rapidly sank. Of the 69 passengers and crew onboard, just 17 survived. The disaster led to sweeping reforms in aviation safety, including compulsory pre-flight safety briefings on every commercial flight. [...] Today, before every commercial flight, cabin crew are required to outline where a plane's exits are, as well as the location of life vests and how to inflate them.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~BeaverCleaver
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrvyllxj71o
> The wreckage of a Pan American Airways plane has been [2]found 74 years after it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in a crash that prompted mandatory airline safety briefings. The Clipper Endeavor was found 2,000ft (610m) below sea level off the coast of Puerto Rico with a sonar-equipped drone. It went down on April 11, 1952, following multiple-engine failure shortly after take-off.
>
> Everyone onboard survived the impact -- but passengers struggled to locate life vests and rafts as the plane rapidly sank. Of the 69 passengers and crew onboard, just 17 survived. The disaster led to sweeping reforms in aviation safety, including compulsory pre-flight safety briefings on every commercial flight. [...] Today, before every commercial flight, cabin crew are required to outline where a plane's exits are, as well as the location of life vests and how to inflate them.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~BeaverCleaver
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrvyllxj71o
Survivable crashes are now rare (Score:2)
I can typically recite the safety briefing from memory (I have flown a lot of flights over many decades), but most people clearly no longer pay attention to the briefings. As survivable crashes are now so rare it probably does not matter that they are not paying attention, but just in case the crash might be survivable, they, perhaps, should listen (not that that is going to change their actions).