Air Travel Tips from the Flight Deck

I am a former airline pilot who used a red flight bag instead of a black one because I thought it was cheerier. I began taking flying lessons the year after the first female airline pilot was hired, so I stood out even without the red flight bag. I noticed that if a flight attendant had a question about something with the airplane, often because of an inquisitive passenger, they often asked me rather than my male captain. Because of this I have accumulated a long list of questions most often asked by passengers. 

Woof Woof. What is that noise that sounds like a barking dog on the Airbus when the plane has just been started or is being shut down?

This is one of the most frequent questions I was asked on the Airbus. This noise comes from something called the power transfer unit (PTU), which is a pump that is part of the hydraulic system. The hydraulic system uses an incompressible fluid like oil to do a task. In an airplane like the Airbus, there are three hydraulic systems, and they do things like raise and lower the landing gear or the flaps or move the flight controls for turning.

Although the sound is unnerving, especially if you think it might be a real dog in distress in the baggage area, it is normal to hear this sound on the ground during engine startup and shutdown because this pump is working as designed. 

More dog talk: bomb-sniffing dogs or what happens if there is a credible bomb threat against a flight.

If a credible threat has been made against a particular flight and the flight is either already boarded or in the air, the plane will be directed to go to a specific location at the airport after landing or taxiing from the gate. There is a pre-determined spot at major airports where it has been determined the risk to other people is the lowest if a bomb should go off. Then the flight attendants will have the passengers get off the plane with their carry-on luggage.

As everyone stands in a line, the bomb-sniffing dogs will do their thing. Taking your bags with you may seem odd, but it is done for good reasons. If the bomb is on the plane in some luggage, then it will likely be easy to find on the plane once everyone is off. As an aside, bomb-sniffing dogs are just the opposite of the drug-sniffing dogs you may have seen on television that rip into people’s luggage.

If a bomb-sniffing dog gets a whiff of something, they will stop and ever so slowly sit on the ground. It’s funny to watch how slowly these dogs will go from sniffing your bags to sitting as if in slow motion. It’s what you want from a dog that thinks a bag has a bomb in it. Then the dog and its handler will get out of there because they are not trained to defuse a bomb—only to detect it. This is a very rare occurrence, but it’s nice to know your luggage won’t be shredded in the process.

Evacuations: Should I stay, or should I go now?

Lately there has been a lot of news coverage about airliners needing to be evacuated using the slides. You may have also seen videos of a plane landing with one of its engines on fire and the passengers were not evacuated. This can make an air traveler wonder what criteria is used to decide if a plane is evacuated and who makes that decision.

The captain is ultimately responsible for giving the signal to evacuate the plane. However, if she is impaired, the first officer might make that call. Pilots are encouraged to collaborate on a big decision like this if there is time. If there is a situation after landing that looks precarious to any of the flight attendants, they might decide to evacuate if they hear nothing from the flight deck and think that passengers are in danger if they stay on the plane.

Keep in mind that the pilots can’t see what is happening in the cabin, so sometimes flight attendants are going to make that decision if they can’t reach one of the pilots or if something is so dangerous that it needs to happen right away—like a fire in the cabin. 

There are some cases when, from a passenger’s perspective, it might seem like the passengers should have been evacuated but they were not. An engine fire is one of those cases. Especially at night, an engine fire can look particularly ominous. What many passengers don’t realize is that an engine fire is usually contained to the engine and doesn’t pose a threat to passengers.

There are also some reasons why a pilot might be reluctant to evacuate an airplane. With an engine fire, there are likely to be many fire trucks coming and going which would present a hazard to people who are evacuating. They may also be using a foam substance to extinguish the fire, and this product is very slippery and can make it hard to see someone who falls on the ground during an evacuation.

Pilots also know any time they evacuate using the slides it is likely there will be multiple injuries. The slides can result in a steep drop and passengers have frequently broken ankles and collarbones coming down the slide or exiting at the bottom. As you can see, there are a lot of factors that go into deciding whether to evacuate a plane.

Musical chairs: Is there a safer place to sit on an airliner?

There have been many attempts to figure out if one seat is better than another in the event of an accident. The results showed that aviation accidents vary so much that there doesn’t seem to be a safer seat. As a pilot, the one thing I try to do when riding in the back is to sit near an emergency exit. This is because being near an exit can make it faster for you to get out.

There is a caveat. You must be able-bodied to sit near an exit and willing and able to assist passengers getting off the plane. You are also expected to look over the directions about how to open the exit to reduce the amount of time it takes for you to open it in a real emergency. Keep in mind that although you must help other passengers, you are only expected to do this for as long as your own life is not in danger. 

Why do airliners that are often close to landing sometimes add power and go-around instead of landing?

Aborting a landing is a normal procedure that pilots train for and it can occur for many reasons. The pilots may have come in too high or too fast, the winds may have become too erratic, or something is blocking the runway.  By far the biggest reason for many years has been because there is a conflict between your plane and another one.

As air traffic has increased and more planes are flying at the same time because of the scheduling practices of the airlines, there will be more conflicts and potentially more go-arounds. Keep in mind that a go-around doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with the airplane. It often just means that another plane is still on your runway, and you will just have a slight delay as they come around again for a landing.

Is it safe to take my one-year-old granddaughter on a trip while holding her on my lap instead of buying her a ticket? I know when she turns two, I must buy her a ticket for her own seat.

If you ask any flight attendant, they will tell you to buy a ticket for your granddaughter no matter how young she is. Flight attendants know how easy it is for babies to get tossed around in turbulence. Even though accidents are rare, you want your baby strapped in if there is a chance of a rough landing. The airlines still don’t require that you buy a seat for children under two because they think families won’t fly if they must buy another ticket.

Many of us aviators think that it should not be a financial decision. Surprisingly there have been several accidents where babies that were in a proper seat survived when adults near them did not. Babies are blissfully unaware of what is happening and being relaxed and restrained is the best chance for survival.

A passenger in a window seat saw fluid pouring out of a spot near the wingtip and suspected it was fuel. Should he say anything?

Yes, absolutely.  It turned out that the pilots had the fuel switches in the wrong position and were pumping fuel to an already full tank. Keep in mind that the pilots can’t see the wings from the flight deck. Sometimes there is a warning light in the cockpit if there is a problem, but not always.

Other passengers have pointed out that the covering around the engine is loose at the top where a pilot can’t see it. Popped rivets were reported by a college student who was studying engineering and knew that meant the wing may have been overstressed.

One serious incident occurred when the spoilers were sticking up (deployed) out of both wings right before the pilots were ready to depart. There was a problem where the handle for the spoilers in the cockpit was in the correct position, but the spoilers were not, so the pilots had no idea the spoilers were deployed.

Spoilers destroy lift, but the pilots would not have known why the airplane was not responding normally and might have had to abort the takeoff at high speed—also potentially dangerous. Fortunately, two off-duty pilots saw this unusual problem from the cabin. 

Conclusion

The moral of these stories is that it’s all right, even encouraged, that you speak up if something looks off. While it is true that the pilots know what they are doing, they are not perfect. Just like the highly trained bomb-sniffing dog that was displaying his prowess at sniffing for bombs for my class of pilots one day.

While his handler had his back turned to the dog and was praising his abilities to the class, the dog somehow thought he had sniffed out a bomb under the skirt I had unfortunately chosen to wear that day. We all have our bad days.

Pre-order Shirley Phillips Book, “How Not to Fly an Airplane: A Female Pilot’s Journey,” on Amazon.