[qingcharles]

This is wild to me:

  "Even though passengers have been forbidden from smoking on airplanes for 25 years, the rules about smoking in the cockpit are less straightforward, and international regulations appear to invest the captain with the authority to decide whether smoking will be allowed or not."

[eddywebs]

Sounds like rule made by smoking captains for the smoking captains.

[lazide]

It’s good to be the king?

[eadmund]

Why is it surprising? There’s no danger from smoking on-board; banning it was never about safety.

[wat10000]

You just read about dozens of people being killed by an on-board fire and you’re going to say there’s no danger from casually having a fire on the end of a stick? Even if this one wasn’t started by a cigarette, they certainly can cause fires.

[qingcharles]

Smoking on flights sucked. The whole cabin ended up hazy and choked with smoke. It stank. I hated those little ashtrays full of nasty ash and gum in the armrests. There are more than just the obvious safety reasons to ban it.

[woliveirajr]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_820

Yes, it was about safety.

[protimewaster]

It feels pretty obvious that discouraging fire in a fully enclosed space would have safety as a motivating factor, so I'm surprised that multiple people here are arguing that there's no safety component.

[Rebelgecko]

It seems like the corrective action was just to add ash trays? Interesting how the pilot later disappeared without a trace tho

[NBJack]

You've got multiple sources of pure oxygen on board, and potentially hundreds of passengers counting on a safe flight in a metal tube hurling through the sky thousands of feet off the ground at hundreds of miles an hour.

[PanMan]

There is a danger, but not a direct danger (of the plane crashing). It certainly isn't healthy :)