Do you wonder why flight attendants always give us the same instructions before take-off and landing? Some of them sound strange and seem to have no logic. Like, why do we need to open window shades or sit in darkness for flights at night? Pilots have their own window to look through, and they can’t even see if it’s dark or not in the passenger cabin. What gives?

Take-off and landing are the most dangerous moments of the whole flight. Airplanes seldom crash in the air; the pilots can easily control the aircraft at a high altitude, or even in a turbulence zone. Most crashes actually occur when the plane is rising above the airport, or is touching back down on the runway. So all the instructions we follow have a good explanation. And that’s for our own security. Let’s see how it works.

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