'Five second safety tip' that all passengers should follow when going on holiday
Rhianna Benson
Featured Image Credit: Oscar Wong/Getty Images/Dobrila Vignjevic/Getty Images
With the summer season finally upon us after what has felt like years of dreary days and dark nights, millions of excited holidaymakers will soon be jam-packed into countless airplanes and whisked away to their dream destination.
They're each spent weeks making sure their passports are up-to-date, triple-checking travel restrictions and bunging everything they own into a tiny 10kg case.
And, now they're finally on the plane, their mind will naturally wander to the promise of a bright white beach and a big, fat piña colada.
Apparently, however, becoming distracted during the first few minutes of a flight can be a life-threatening mistake, with a particular warning this year being issued to flyers to take heed of safety regulation.
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It's not just the standard demonstration given by cabin crew which passengers need to be paying attention to nowadays, though.
That's because this week, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have lifted the lid on a crucial 'five second safety tip' which they say travellers must bare in mind whilst on-board, after the firm noticed an alarming pattern in air-bound accidents.
Following a number of in-flight fatalities which occurred across Russia in recent years, the IATA caught wind of a ritual which almost all of the panicked passengers were carrying out in the middle of the evacuation process.
Frequent flyers will be well aware that, during the safety demonstration given before lift-off, flight attendants explain that, in cases of an evacuation, passengers must 'leave all luggage behind'.
Investigating a total of 41 fatalities on-board a doomed Aeroflot jet which made an emergency landing in Moscow after catching on fire, the safety body subsequently realised that much of this was caused by passengers ignoring this particular instruction.
In fact, it was later discovered that countless travellers were making their way around the plane to collect their 'valuable' items - primarily laptops - during the emergency protocol.
As such, experts are now encouraging passengers to take note of a crucial survival hack, known as the 'five second safety tip'.
"As soon as I board a plane, I always take note of the nearest emergency exit, counting the number of seat rows between my location and that exit," said Golden Rule Travel agent Hans Mast this week, explaining that this ritual should only take up a handful of seconds, and means that - if someone around you is prioritising their luggage, you'll still be able to make a quick exit.
"In the event of an emergency, visibility could be impaired, and having this mental map can be life-saving," she continued, adding that this five-second hack could even put you ahead of the crew in cases of an evacuation.