Amanda Ripley Author of The Unthinkable

In the dead-tree version of Time this week, I have a piece on the crash of Flight 1549—and why it would never go down that way if it were a scene on the show 24.

I’m in Honolulu now to speak to the Pacific Preparedness conference. It’s so beautiful I don’t even want to tell you about it. It just seems wrong. But I will tell you that I sat next to Honlulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann on the flight from DC. The Mayor turns out to be quite the celebrity. During the flight, the pilot, all the flight attendants and several passengers came by to meet him. He was very gracious.

Like me, the Mayor had spent the past few days at inauguration festivities. (Not only is he a Hawaii VIP; he also coached a basketball team that played Obama’s team when he was in high school. He’s like family, this guy!) We talked a bit about what a surreal experience the inauguration was, and we agreed that it will probably never happen again.

Starting on Saturday, there was a buzz in the air. By Sunday, we couldn’t move our car because we knew we’d never get a parking space again. On Monday, I tried to work at a local coffee shop, and I quickly discovered that there were no empty seats left in the city. But the remarkable thing was the exuberance. People walked miles through town to get to the Mall, cameras hanging from their necks and Obama buttons on every piece of clothing. Strangers said hello and smiled like kids on a snow day. On Sunday, we ventured to the Mall to hear U2 and get a glimpse of the action. In front of us, by the Washington Monument, an old man in a Terps hat and sweats just danced and danced, like the happiest man alive. Everytime the JumboTron flashed a picture of Obama’s smiling face, people cheered.

I haven’t felt that much palpable connection between strangers since I lived in Manhattan after 9/11. I don’t know what this means. I do know it won’t last forever, nor should it. But it was lovely.

The Mall is packed. The bridges out of DC are shut down. People are cold and tired. Check out my story for Slate about how to survive a crowd crush.

I just watched Bill O’Reilly “interview” one of the survivors of the US Airways crash on Fox. I am reluctant to use the word interview since that would imply asking a question and then listening to the answer before talking again. But let’s put that aside for now.

Like most people, O’Reilly was absolutely convinced that there must have been panic and mayhem aboard the flight. He repeatedly questioned the survivor, a man who had barely dried off from a crash landing in the Hudson several hours before, about whether people were screaming and pushing on the plane. When the man explained that no, people had been generally calm and helpful, O’Reilly was amazed. He asked again and again why people had not become violent and hysterical, until the survivor agreed it was shocking indeed.

The truth is, in almost every disaster I have studied, people treat each other with kindness and respect. Violence and panic are extremely rare. An instant camraderie springs up between strangers—on a sinking ship or a bombed-out subway car. That is the rule, not the exception.

After the terrorist bombings on the London transit system on July 7, 2005, which killed 52 people and wounded hundreds, some victims actually resisted leaving the tube station. “I needed the [others] for comfort,” one survivor explained to U.K. psychologist John Drury. “I felt better knowing that I was surrounded by people.”

One study of U.S. mining disasters found that miners tended to follow their groups even if they disagreed with the group’s decisions. Grown men trapped underground would rather make a potentially fatal decision than be left alone.

In other airplane crashes, passengers have risked their lives because they climbed over seats to regroup with the rest of their family before evacuating. In skyscraper fires, people making arduous journeys down hundreds of stairs will tend to insist that those entering the stairwell from lower floors go ahead of them. In fact, I’ve yet to meet a 9/11 survivor who didn’t help or receive help from a stranger on the way out of the towers.

Why don’t we turn into raving maniacs? Because it is in our interest to be nice to each other. Under threat, we need each other more than ever.

When I saw the tail sticking up out of the water, I had a terrible feeling. Today’s crash of US Airways flight 1549 in New York was unnervingly similar to the crash of Air Florida flight 90, almost exactly 27 years ago to the day. Air Florida flight 90 crashed into the Potomac River in Washington, DC, on a frigid day, just moments after take-off. It was extremely difficult for people to get to the surface before the cabin filled with water and sank—and human beings do not generally do well in extremely cold water. Back then, of the 79 people onboard, 74 died. 

But this would be different. Everyone made it off the US Airways flight. And I realize now I should have been more optimistic. Most people involved in serious plane accidents survive, for one thing. And for another, we know that people in disasters can perform very well if they are given clear directions.

As soon as I heard everyone had survived, I knew the crew had done a tremendous job. We now know that the pilot managed to warn the passengers to “brace for impact” before the plane hit the Hudson River. Getting some warning—any warning—is crucial for people in all kinds of disasters.

Most of us become incredibly docile and obedient under extreme duress, especially in an unfamiliar environment like an airplane. The brain does not handle new information well in this state. Thinking becomes extremely challenging. One of the biggest dangers is that we will shut down and stop moving altogether—a phenomenon reported in every kind of disaster, from sinking ships to plane crashes to terrorist bombings. We go into a sort of stupor—not unlike animals playing dead—and it does not serve us well in modern calamities like plane crashes.

But there is good news: all the research shows that we respond very well to clear, aggressive orders. Flight attendants are now trained to scream at passengers to “get out!” in airplane evacuations. And it works—helping to snap us out of this stupor and get us moving. (Research has shown that if they don’t scream these orders, they have the same effect as if they were not there at all—which is to say, no effect.)

Look, the truth is, plane crashes are extremely rare. And water landings are so rare they are almost not worth talking about. But when they do happen, plane crashes are more survivable than we expect. And our behavior matters a great deal. Of all passengers involved in serious plane accidents between 1983 and 2000, 56 percent survived. (“Serious” is defined by the National Transportation Safety Board as accidents involving fire, severe injury, and substantial aircraft damage.)

It’s good to be reminded that all is not lost if you happen to be unlucky enough to be in a plane crash. Remember: the more information you have given your brain before anything goes wrong, the better you will do. Translation: read the safety briefing cards and listen to the flight attendants. The National Transportation Safety Board has found that passengers who read the safety information card are less likely to get hurt in an emergency.

In a plane crash at Pago Pago in 1974, all but 5 of the 101 passengers died. All the survivors reported that they had read the safety information cards and listened to the briefing. They exited over the wing, while other passengers went toward other, more dangerous but traditional exits and died.