Plane-Crash Myths That Don’t Fly

Every time an airplane crashes, certain myths reappear.

They may not always make complete sense but they do reflect a deep-felt human need for security and control, especially in the face of the common fear of flying, experts say.

Though figures show that flying is at least 20 times safer per passenger mile than riding in a car, aviation myths are so common that anthropologists and folklorists can readily list and classify them in categories ranging from “Off the Wall” to “It Couldn’t Hurt:”

--The safest place in the airplane is the back row.

--When seeing a friend off at the airport, never wait to see the plane leave the ground.

--It’s bad luck to look back when entering the plane.

--If the ghost of a dead pilot appears in the microwave, the plane will crash.

--Dreaming of planes is a sign of death.

--Airplane crashes always come in groups of three (so after the third crash, it’s safe to start flying again).

The notion that most things come in threes arises from an ancient Middle Eastern tradition, says Pitzer College anthropologist Donald Brenneis. But over time the belief in three has so infused our culture that we now find it in everything from the Blessed Trinity to the notion that in writing college compositions one should always give three examples.

Still, says Brenneis, it’s only a form of cultural conditioning, not some scientific principle. (Among some Indian tribes of Northern Canada, he notes, it is believed that things naturally occur in groups of four.)

Why then the persistence of the notion that things happen in threes? It’s simple, says UCLA folklorist Frances Cattermole-Tally: Once one’s expectations are satisfied by three plane crashes, “you stop counting at that point.”

If a fourth crash occurs, it doesn’t confound you, says Brenneis. That’s merely “the start of a new series.”

Most airplane myths aren’t new--they’re adaptations of ancient myths to new conditions, he says.

It’s an ancient sailors’ belief, for instance, that the face of a dead ship captain will appear in the cooking fire to warn of impending disaster, he says. The modern variation, an adaptation of which became a television movie, is for the plane captain’s face to appear in the galley microwave.

The idea that dreaming of airplanes is a sign of death is probably related to an old notion that dreams about birds signify death, Brenneis says.

As for the notion that travelers should not look back when boarding an airplane, Brenneis says, that is a variation of the Orpheus myth and its biblical elaboration, the tale of Lot’s wife, who became a pillar of salt when she looked back at Sodom.

Psychologists say it is no surprise that old myths persist and flourish in every age: They are an anxious attempt to use magic to bring an unruly universe under some human control. This also is the reason that highly controlling people hate flying so much: They can’t trust anyone--including the pilot--with their lives, says Chaytor Mason, an aviation psychologist and a Marine fighter pilot in World War II.

But there is one flying myth that may not be myth at all. That’s the widespread notion that, in case of a crash, it’s safer in the back rows.

On this point, opinion is mixed.

There is no one place that is safest to sit under all accident conditions, says Ted Lopatkiewicz, National Transportation Safety Commission spokesman, adding, “Tell me what kind of an accident you are going to have and I’ll tell you where it it safest to sit.”

But says Mason, the aviation psychologist who teaches accident prevention and investigation to the U.S. Air Force, the airlines and at USC, the rear of the plane is safer for “all sorts of reasons.”

There are more exits per person in the rear, and, in a crash, most people panic and run to the front of the plane, he says. Travelers sitting in the back also don’t have to worry about getting hit by loose seats, flying people and hurtling luggage from overhead storage compartments. If the plane ignites, most of the fuel is stored in the wings so the aft sections tend to burn last or not at all.

“Everyone knows the back end of the airplane is safest,” Mason says. “It’s too bad they can’t sell seats in the tail.”

Most people who fly, Mason says, worry about all the wrong things: turbulence, which often only moves the plane a few inches; lightning, which rarely does more than damage the radar domes or make pinholes in the wings; or catastrophes that really don’t happen any more, such as the wings falling off.

“What they ought to spend more time worrying about,” he says, is “the mood of the pilot.”

“When (pilots) are exceedingly happy or unhappy you are in danger,” says Mason. In the Continental crash in Denver in November, which killed 28 people, the pilots “were joking about the date-ability of a certain stewardess before they took off.” In the Northwest Airlines crash in Detroit in August, 1987, which killed 156 people when the flight crew forgot to put the flaps down, “one of the last sounds (heard on the flight recorder) was merriment in the cockpit.”

Although many travelers avoid an airline that just has suffered a major crash, Mason says, it temporarily might be safest of all, because “after a crash, people clean up their act.”

Passengers, Mason says, can take steps to make flying safer: “Fly a U.S. airline. They are still the safest. Fly one of the major carriers that is doing well financially. Try to fly in the daytime--more accidents occur at night, especially at landing. If there are severe thunderstorms in the area, don’t get on the plane.”

Men and women should wear long pants while flying; dresses slide up while going down the evacuation slide and the heat generated can melt nylon panties into the skin.

He also advises travelers to “wear good durable shoes,” such as bulky padded tennis shoes and to carry a flashlight.

But most of all, “know how to get out of the plane--in the dark, upside down, filled with smoke. Sit near an exit. Know how to open the door because 50% of the flight attendants get killed.

“Don’t stop to help other people. Families don’t survive as well as single individuals because families tend to wait around for other people--’After you, father.’ ” Single travelers, intensely focused on their own survival, are “more likely to make it through the door before the fireball hits.”

Finally, Mason says, travelers should not be ashamed of their flight anxieties. “Flying is a foreign element . . . . Everyone who gets aboard an airliner has a certain level of elevated blood pressure and perspiration. And that includes the pilot.”