A plane stupid requirement?
An odd airline safety requirement has reared its head in a truly South African fashion. In the verbal equivalent of a girl-fight, the Department of Labour claims Kulula's excuse for not hiring enough black cabin crew is because "black people cannot swim". It is hard to believe that Kulula's position is such an obviously false and racist one, so it was not surprising that the joint CEO of Comair (Erik Venter) remarked that "The allegations are not only blatantly false but also defamatory." Venter also points out that:
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over eight hundred and fift black employees form more than 50% of the Comair team
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The first airline to hire black cabin crew was Comair - over 30 years ago (I think they mean the first in South Africa)
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The only airline to run a swimming training programme for their cabin crew wannabes are Comair
Why the need for cabin crew to be lifeguards?
In the extremely unlikely event of your plane ditching into water, the cabin crew are expected to transform into Baywatch babes and help swim you out to safety; and the CAA (the Civil Aviation Authority, the same authority investigating Nationwide's loss of an engine on takeoff but who decided not to investigate SAA's handbrake turn on Cape Town's runways) therefore mandates life-saving skills (including the ability to swim) as requirements necessary for cabin crew to be granted accreditation.
Are the CAA smoking?
The CAA making lifeguards of cabin crew - are they smoking some of the Eastern Cape's most famous export, or will this ever come in handy?
In December 2002, The Economist magazine quoted an aviation expert as saying that "No large airliner has ever made an emergency landing on water". In September 2006 The Economist again claimed that "in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero."
While the Economist's claims are not quite accurate and depend on what you mean by a "successful landing", what is true is that you have a better chance of being eaten alive by a wild animal than of being involved in a plane ditching into water and a cabin crew member swimming you to safety.
Cases of planes ditching in water
There is a difference between crashing into water and attempting to land in water (ditching). There are no recorded incidents of passenger aircraft ditching in water where there have been no survivors. For instance, in 1956, a Boeing 767-200 ER (Pan Am 943) lost 2 of its 4 engines and ditched into the Pacific, with all 31 lives on board surviving.
1970 |
Another Boeing 767-200 ER (this time Ethiopian 961) was hijacked and ditched a short distance from land. Fifty two of the 175 on board survived (some were trapped in the plane when inflating their life vests before exiting). |
2002 |
A Boeing 737 (Garuda Indonesia 425) ditched in a river (only one person, a flight attendant, died). |
While they cannot quite be classified as attempts to ditch, occasionally planes find themselves in water after running off the end of runways or coming in short of runways.
1989 |
A Boeing 737-401 rolled into the East River off La Guardia airport, losing 2 of its 63 passengers. |
1993 |
A Boeing 747-409 ran out of runway on landing at Kai Tak Airport and ended up in water (no fatalities). |
Open letter to Glenn Orsmond
In light of Kulula's stunt to wear "sexy costumes" in the Boksburg swimming pool, we decided to write an open letter to Glenn Orsmond.
More info
Want more - see our Kulula specials.