A 'crash-proof' plane which breaks on impact might allow survivors to escape, but seat design is still a problem, writes GERRY BYRNE
‘SUE, I THINK that’s Tom’s plane,” came the terrified shriek from the next room. When she got to the TV her hysterical mother was watching, Sue Eilers saw a large aircraft hit the ground fast, somersault, break in three giant pieces, and explode in a fireball which ploughed across the screen.
It was July 19th, 1989, her husband Tom was aboard and Sue had been told the DC10 jet, United Airlines flight 232, due in Chicago, had been diverted to Sioux City, Iowa, for an emergency landing. All hydraulic power had been lost and the aircraft was almost uncontrollable. Tom, she thought, and all aboard, were surely dead.
Later Tom phoned an overjoyed Sue to say he had survived, along with almost two-thirds of the 296 aboard. Was this, like the survival of a nine-year-old Dutch boy in Wednesday’s Tripoli crash, against the odds?
In fact, statistics show many passengers survive the initial impact in most fatal plane crashes. Sadly, a lot of them die in the ensuing fire. In the Sioux City crash 24 of the 111 dead were uninjured but died from smoke inhalation, trapped in their seats by wreckage. Another 11 might have survived their injuries but smoke got to them before help.
In the East Midlands crash of January 8th, 1989, where a British Midland Boeing 737 slammed into a steep motorway embankment, the real miracle was there was no fire. Thirty-nine died at the scene (eight later in hospital) but the majority of passengers, 79 in total, survived the initial impact. But, of the survivors, only five were able enough to assist in their rescue. Had there been a fire, most, if not all, aboard would have died. The steep embankment, while a major factor in the violence of the impact, helped because spilled fuel drained away quickly before a small engine fire could spread.
The Sioux City and East Midlands crashes have pointed the way to the design of the ideal crash-proof “fantasy” aircraft. In many respects it remains similar to the common aluminium-built aircraft we use today. When they crash, the aluminium structure buckles and tears, absorbing much of the impact. Aircraft built from high-tech epoxy plastics, like Boeing’s new B-787, behave differently.
A Nasa researcher once explained to me how planes either shatter on impact, tossing occupants out to their death, or else bounce hard, imparting unbearable forces to occupants.
Many passengers in the Sioux City crash who were killed on impact died when the aircraft broke apart and they were ejected at over 100mph. It is possible to predict where a plane’s fuselage will break during certain types of impact and computer simulation of major accidents show fuselages breaking apart at more or less the same places, usually forward of the wings, and in the tail section.
“A fuselage break is not all bad,” Ed Fasanella, a military air crash simulation researcher at NASA, said a few years ago. “You could design certain areas to break in a controlled fashion, to absorb energy and to give egress to escaping passengers.” In fact, Tom Eilers made good his escape at Sioux City by crawling through a break in the fuselage.
Lisa Jones, a NASA survival expert, says aircraft could be designed around break points provided critical changes are incorporated. If she had her way, several rows of seats either side of the break points would be replaced with galleys and toilets so passengers are away from the opening at impact.
Seat design is a major contributor to crash injuries: concussion and broken legs are common preventing many injured passengers making their escape. Yet crash-proof, shock-absorbing seats have been designed for US military helicopter pilots who now routinely stroll free from crashes that once would have killed them.
But the US company which designed them failed to spark any interest among the airlines, or the plane-makers which supply them.
Even today’s seats would be much safer if passengers faced aft, not forward. The East Midlands crash showed even the seat belts broke pelvises and suggested aft-facing seats be explored. But while fewer heads, arms, legs and pelvises would be broken from striking the seat in front during a crash, Lisa Jones says aft-facing seats should only be allowed when we end our love affair with hand baggage in the cabin.
One analysis of crash injuries showed that tall people in aisle seats were more likely to be killed or suffer serious head injuries in a crash due to the rain of duty-free and heavy bags fired out of overhead lockers as they burst. At least part of the average body is protected by the seatback in a forward-facing seat. Facing aft you could be killed by the laptop belonging to the guy behind you.
