People are just realising why you must put your window shades up during take-off and landing… it could save your life
PEOPLE are only now realising why flight attendants make you put your window shades up during take-off and landing.
There is a very important reason behind the procedure and it could save your life.
Marshall Smith, a helicopter pilot, has revealed the safety aspect behind it.
It’s in case the plane encounters an emergency on hitting the ground.
With the need for passengers to evacuate as fast as they can, they need to be able to see clearly so they can get off in a hurry without anyone injuring themselves.
Mr Smith wrote on the information sharing website Quora to explain.
He said: “The purpose is to allow your eyes to adjust to the outdoor light levels so that if there is an emergency and you have to rapidly evacuate you won’t be blinded by the sudden burst of light.
“This also why they turn the lights off when landing at night – so that your eyes will be adjusted to the dark in case you have to evacuate.
“If your eyes have already been adjusted to the darkness, you can see immediately and don’t have to wait for your eyes to adjust.”
Aviation safety network CEO Harro Ranter added that it is important to have an outside view if a plane is involved in an emergency.
He told MailOnline Travel: “Should an evacuation become necessary, it’s important to have an outside view so you can decide if that side is safe.
“If flames are visible on that side, you’d need to evacuate through another exit.”
Those views were also echoed by a flight attendant to took to Reddit to explain things.
They said: “In addition [to the window blinds] we always turn off the lights in the cabin at this time.
“This is so that the human eye can get used to the level of light outside the cabin.
“In case of an emergency situation and an urgent need to leave the cabin, it is very important that the person can immediately orient himself to his surroundings outside the plane and not wait for his eyes to become accustomed to bright light or darkness.”
Another flight attendant said: “It is so that if an evacuation is needed the flight attendants are more easily able to assess the conditions outside of the aircraft to determine in an exit is usable.”
Of course, these are just contingency plans for the very unlikely event of a plane crash.
There is also a rather strange reason why all the plane windows are round.
They never used to be – back when they were square, they were attributed to being behind two plane crashes
The sharp corners of the windows put the surrounding metal under extra stress in high altitudes with as much as two or three times more than other places on the plane.
This caused the planes to break up mid-air.
You may have also spotted some tiny holes in the plane window – we’ve explained what these are really for.
Don’t ever lean on the plane window though as experts have found that it is it dirtiest place on the flight.