Travellers' Checks | Experience aviation disasters with crash survival app
From crash landings and ground collisions to cabin fires, the Prepare for Impact simulator game helps fliers brace for worst-case scenarios
Experiencing a selection of “real-world aircraft emergencies from the passenger’s viewpoint, with the highest fidelity allowed by today’s mobile devices” is probably not a great idea if you’re already up in the air, or even within a few days of taking off. Or so I was thinking, as I virtually perished in half a dozen alarming ways while attempting to escape from a burning airliner.
Created by the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, at the University of Udine, in Italy, the Prepare for Impact app has been around for a while now, but has been updated several times since it was launched, and now lets you design your own in-flight nightmares according to a number of criteria.
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Before being allowed to do this, though, you’ll need to go through several unpleasant first-person scenarios, such as Runway Overrun, Water Landing, Ground Collision, Crash Landing, Rejected Take-off and Fumes in the Cabin under the urgent guidance of Italian-accented flight crew.
Prepare for Impact started out as a demo for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, and while the iPhone/iPad version doesn’t offer anything like that level of reality (older players might even experience faint echoes of Windows 95 as they stagger towards the emergency exit), it should make you more aware, and prepared, than any on-board safety demonstration or video.