• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Why Do Airplane Window Shades Have To Be Up During Takeoff And Landing?

March 9, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

During a long flight, you may have wondered a number of things, like why flight attendants never seem to drink hot drinks, what the tiny hole in your window is for, or why the aircraft crew asks you to keep your window shades open during takeoff and landing. 

Well, wonder no more. You might reasonably guess it’s because the shutters would rattle, or just so the cabin crew can see the little people and sheep get smaller and smaller during takeoff. However, the main reason is to do with your eyes.

Advertisement

“It’s for your own safety,” Schiphol International Airport explained in a blog post. 

“If anything happens during take-off and landing – the riskiest stages of every flight – then your eyes will already be used to the dark or the light outside, and you’ll be able to react more quickly. That’s also the reason why the lights in the cabin are dimmed for take-off and landing.”

Although the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) doesn’t require open windows during taxi, takeoff, and landing, it is considered best practice according to United’s Association of Flight Attendants. Though they note eyesight adjustment is an important part, so too is making an emergency situation clear to first responders on the ground. 

“Smoke or a fire inside the cabin may not be visible to emergency services from the outside with the shades closed. Their ability to determine the best location to enter an aircraft is just another reason shades should be open.”

Advertisement

There are other factors too, such as helping the flight crew identify problems with the plane’s engines or wings in an emergency or discerning which side to evacuate the aircraft from.

“From a safety standpoint, open shades help improve situational awareness,” a spokesperson from the Flight Safety Foundation told Condé Nast Traveler. “For example, during an emergency evacuation, flight attendants or passengers need to be able to see outside to determine whether it’s safe to open and use an emergency exit. You don’t want to send someone out an over-wing exit if the engine on that side is still running or on fire.”

It can also save time in an emergency. “When everyone can see outside, we can best evaluate all conditions quickly including seeing the engines, wings, and any potential obstruction prior to initiating an evacuation,” United’s AFA says. “The moment an evacuation is necessary is not the time to waste precious seconds opening window shades.”

So there you have it, you have to keep your window shutters open so that the cabin crew can see if the engine is on fire, and so that you can see in general. Now to figure out why most planes are painted white.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Palestinian president says he’s ready for confidence-building
  2. Dear Sophie: Should I apply for citizenship if I have a conviction?
  3. Roasted Puppy Fat And Salty Owls: Bizarre Medieval Medicine Revealed In New Digital Project
  4. How Will The Solar System End?

Source Link: Why Do Airplane Window Shades Have To Be Up During Takeoff And Landing?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Can You Be Allergic To Other People? Yes, And It Sounds Like The Worst Thing Ever
  • Animals With “Urban Superpowers” Lurk In London’s Underground, And Some Of Them Want To Drink Your Blood
  • This Is The Largest Radio Color Image Of The Milky Way Ever Assembled – And It’s Gorgeous
  • Why We Can’t Stop Watching True Crime: The Psychological Pull And The Ethical Push
  • “Silent, Ongoing Genocide”: World’s 196 Uncontacted Tribes Are Facing Grave Threats To Their Survival
  • Golden Tigers Are Among The Rarest Big Cats In The World, But They Spell Bad News For Tigers
  • Rare 2-Million-Year-Old Infant Facial Fossils Expand What We Know About Prehistoric Human Children
  • First-Ever 3D Map Of Planet Outside Solar System Reveals Distant World’s Hot Spot And Cool Ring
  • From Chains To Forests: Working Elephants Set To Be Rehabilitated In The Wild Under New Project
  • Why Does Death Have Such A Distinctive Smell?
  • Blue Dogs Have Been Spotted In Chernobyl: What Is Going On?
  • Record-Breaking Gravitational Wave Detection Suggests These Black Holes Merged Before
  • Hurricane Melissa Is 2025’s Strongest Storm Yet, With Turbulence So Bad It Saw Off The Hurricane Hunters
  • Fancy Seeing Your Organs In 4D? Pretty Soon, You Might Be Able To
  • First Known Bats To Glow In The Dark In The US Discovered – But Scientists Aren’t Sure Why
  • “You Be Good. I Love You”: How Alex The Parrot Rewrote Our Understanding Of Animal Intelligence
  • What Would You Find If You Drill Down Deep Under Antarctica?
  • This Is The Safest Place To Sit In Your Car
  • Birds, Hats, And Boycotts: The Story Behind Why It’s A Crime To Collect Feathers
  • Ultra-High-Definition TV – Is It Really Worth It? New Study Figures Out If We Can Even See In UHD
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version