Winging It: 'Fasten Seatbelt' warning: Not to be dismissed

Many air travelers have done it. Sometime during a flight, often as the plane is descending, we ignore the "Fasten Seatbelt" light and scramble out of our seats to make a dash for the restroom.

But as one unfortunate Texas woman now knows, disobeying the admonition of flight crews to be seated and strapped down whenever a pilot turns on the seatbelt light can cause serious injuries.

About 10 people a year - most of them flight attendants who were at work, moving around an airline cabin - sustain broken bones and other serious injuries as a result of an "accident caused by turbulence," as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) classifies them.

The most recent accident occurred just after 1:30 a.m. April 18 as a Continental Airlines 737 jet was headed to McAllen, Texas, on a flight from Houston. The flight had been held on the ground by stormy weather across the region and left Houston three hours late, but was not delayed further in the air.

As the airplane was leaving 20,000 feet on its way down, it ran into severe turbulence. Continental says the seatbelt light was illuminated at the time. Three passengers were injured, including a 47-year-old woman who was in the restroom and was apparently flung into the ceiling, breaking her neck.

The passenger, who was not identified, was paralyzed from the chest down and underwent six hours of surgery in a McAllen hospital, according to an Associated Press report. Her family asked that no more information about her or her condition be released, the AP said.

Anyone who has been on more than a couple of airline flights has probably experienced the same kind of very bumpy ride the Continental passengers did, but some are worse than others. I vividly recall a couple of flights, one in a six-passenger corporate jet and another in a DC-9, when I wondered if I were on my last trip.

But injuries as serious as the one suffered by the Continental passenger are extremely rare. Airlines are required to report any flight on which an injury occurs to NTSB, so there are good records.

From 1996 through 2006, an average of 10 serious injuries a year from turbulence accidents were reported by U.S. airlines to NTSB. There was one passenger fatality, in 1998. From 2006 through 2008, airlines reported 19 flights with injuries, but no fatalities, from turbulence, according to a separate set of NTSB records.

The worst recent accident happened in October, when a Qantas jet en route from Singapore to Perth, Australia, with more than 300 passengers and crew aboard, encountered turbulence while it was cruising at high altitude, a time when the seatbelt light is usually off.

More than 40 passengers were injured, and the plane made an emergency landing at Learmouth, Australia, so they could receive medical attention.

Many of the other turbulence accidents also occurred when a plane was cruising above 30,000 feet, often with the seatbelt sign off and drink and food carts in the aisle. So you have to blame Mother Nature in those cases.

Looking into this made me think about other ways in which you can get sick or be injured while riding in an airliner. The greatest danger is probably picking up germs during the flu-and-cold season from fellow passengers. There's also DVT, or deep-vein thrombosis, the potentially deadly condition that causes blood clots in travelers who sit for hours on long flights.

We don't have room here for a lecture about the whole topic, other than to sound like your mother and remind you to cover your mouth when you cough, wash your hands after using the restroom, and get up and move around on a long flight - except when the flight attendant says to sit down.

"The instructions given during a flight aren't there to inconvenience the passenger," noted Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants union. "And the seatbelt light is not to be taken lightly."

In last week's column, on using public transportation to reach New York-area or Baltimore airports to take advantage of lower international fares, I ran out of space before giving another alternative its due. Limousine services, in either vans or sedans, are available at a cost of about $55 and up, per person, in each direction between the Philadelphia area and Newark and New York Kennedy airports.

A reader recommended one of the region's oldest and better-known services, Dave's Best Limousine (www.davesbestlimos.com). It runs daily scheduled trips to Newark and JFK, with pickup from any location. It's the only limo company listed on the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Web site (www.panynj.gov) for service to JFK from the Philadelphia area.

If you have had good experiences using other limo services, please let me know. Even better, tell the world about it in a comment on the Winging It blog after I post this column there today.