Airline Preparedness – Always Mindful of the Nearest Exit
When I travel, I am always planning for disaster. I’m not some guy who hates to fly. I actually love to fly. But I can’t turn off the “what ifs” in my brain. I’m a former Secret Service agent and the training is ingrained. And now I own a security company.
Part of being an effective Secret Service agent was having what we liked to call “situational awareness.” It’s basically nothing more than looking around your location, sizing up the people around you, and then thinking of the many things that could go wrong, and what you would do if one of those things happened.
Now I do that on airplanes. I just can’t help myself. I’m actually the guy who always pays attention to the preflight safety briefing. And I actually review the safety card, if only to look at the diagram of exits.
The single most important thing in this process is planning how I am going to get out if things go south during my flight. This is particularly true if I am traveling with my family. I actually visualize how we’re going to get out of an emergency.
There are a few other things I do for safety. I never take off my shoes until we’ve reached cruising altitude, and I make sure they’re on before descent. I encourage my wife to wear flats because it’s hard to move quickly in heels, and being barefoot is worse.
And I always carry a few tools. One of my favorite items is a lithium cell flashlight. When I was a Secret Service agent, I found that a good flashlight is the single most useful tool on the planet. Aircraft evacuations happen so quickly that I don’t know if I ever will need to use it — at least I hope I won’t. But I always bring one with me.
Also in the category of things that I may not have time to use, but still carry anyway, is a smoke mask. The one I have is filled with aloe, which filters toxic chemicals out of smoke.
