Pre-flight checks

There's a familiar list of announcements when boarding a plane, but what do they actually mean? Our undercover pilot shines a light on pre-flight procedures

I'm sure you will all have heard announcements such as "doors to automatic and cross check" or "the cabin lights will shortly be dimmed for take-off". But do you know what is actually happening or why? In this column, I'm going to explain a bit more about some of these pre-flight procedures.

When an aircraft departs from the gate, you will hear the announcement, "Cabin crew doors to automatic and cross check." You may have noticed that this prompts the cabin crew to operate a lever on each of the doors. This "arms" the door, meaning that should it be necessary to evacuate the aircraft in an emergency, the escape slide will automatically inflate once the door is opened. Cross check simply means cabin crew examine each other's work by switching sides to check the levers on the other side of the plane.

Similarly, when the aircraft arrives at the gate you will hear: "Cabin crew doors to manual and cross check", which means they will place the lever in the disarm position. Now, when the door is opened, the slide will not inflate and cause injury to the ground staff meeting the flight. It has happened!