Dealing with Great White Sharks

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If you were in a plane, and it crashed into the ocean, and you were floating along the waves, and you saw a sharks fin go by, you realize it is a great white shark, what would you do? it is noon, the sun is high, and the green salty waters cannot be seen through, what would you do?

Cut an NT's throat then swim away really fast before the sharks smell the NT's blood in the water perhaps they will fill up on the NT.

Don't worry I will tell everyone the NT died fighting the shark then give them a really good heroic story of an autistic man's struggle on the high seas fighting off sharks, dehydration, and and in the end over coming my autism in order to survive. I bet they would make it into a movie. One less NT in the world and I would walk away a little richer and perhaps a sweet deal as a motivational speaker.

LOL nice

Well I dont think anyone should be sacerficed, so I would take a piece of the plane and be prepared to poke the shark in the eye or nose with it...if it gets too close. They have very sensitive noses and eyes...learned that on the discovery channel. However if some one is already dead...that is likely considering a plane crashed at high speed into the water, I would grab the dead person and throw them to the shark...and swim on top of large parts of floating debris and waited until rescued if I was far away from land. If land was close, I would swim.
I doubt I would be a motivational speaker though...I hate public speaking.

scenaro two:
I would grab a larger pointed part of the debris...climb on what could hold me...and stab the shark with it in the gills going inward to kill the shark...I then would eat what I could and swim the rest away from the plane and wait to be rescued on a full stomach. Of course the likelyhood of killing a shark without getting killed or seroiusly injured is very slim, but at least I tried.

You wouldn't see a great white fin. If you saw anything, it would be a ton of teeth coming at you. They come straight up out of the deep to attack from below.

Truth. I don't even want to imagine how terrifying a death that would be.

Well...first of all....if you can't see through the waters and all you're seeing of the animal is the dorsal fin, it would likely be difficult for most people to identify the species as a great white. Ok...let's say you have some expertise in that area and you have been able to positively identify the species as Carcharodon carcharias. I would say IDEALLY, the best thing to do is stay as calm and still as possible. The latter would only be possible if you had a floatation device from the plane of course. Otherwise you'd be treading water or you'd drown. Sharks possess sensory organs known as Ampullae of Lorenzini and these can pick up on the electrical fields generated by the muscle contractions of other animals. Now staying still in this particular situation may not help you much and it possibly may backfire too. That is...if the shark is close, it is probably already aware of your presence and thus, staying still might do you no good in this instance. If you appear to be lifeless and since almost all things in nature (including humans) are inclined to taking the path of least resistance, the shark may look upon you as easy (and perhaps even dead dinner it doesn't have to struggle with) dinner.

On the other hand....I can't see what good could come out of thrashing around or substantial movement of anykind. I'm not sure the shark in question would be intimidated by it for one thing. For another....the shark in question may very well just harmlessly pass you by. One or more of the other sharks you likely would attract by your thrashing may not.

Again....all of this is what should be done IDEALLY IMO. Try to stay calm and still after a plane crash and then encountering a potentially man-eating shark like a great white. I can assure you that unless you are among the most fearless people in the world, that will be quite a tall order.

Still....your very survival would probably depend on staying still AND calm. Like most animals, (again.....include humans) sharks are pretty good at sensing fear. Some experiments were done with bull sharks (one of the three sharks species who pose the greatest threat to humans) in the Bahamas not too long ago. A researcher (not sure if he was an actual marine biologist or what) went to a location known to be frequented by dozens of bull sharks. He was wearing a chainmail shark suit and he entered the shallow water where the bulls were schooling around.

Almost instantly....the sharks began to act aggressively towards him and several bit him. He was mostly unharmed thanks to the suit...but the sharks did manage to break skin on various parts of his body. He got out of the water and meditated for a half hour. He proceeded to slow his heart rate down to probably something like 30-40 bpm (which trained atheletes and young/healthy people can often get away with.) and otherwise get into a very calm state.

He reentered the water in this state and sharks essentially ignored him. Now this is not PROOF that his relaxed state caused the sharks to ignore him. There could've been some other circumstances which caused the sharks to ignore him whereas they were aggressive a half-hour earlier. Perhaps they had managed to get their fill of food by this time for one thing and were no longer really interested in him.

Nonetheless.....animals CAN sense fear and sharks are likely particularily adept at this. After all....the heart IS a muscle and the ampullae of lorenzini would very likely easily pick up upon the electrical fields generated by a fast and fear-influenced heart rate. Now since the OP did not ask what should be done if the shark actually ATTACKED ...i'm not going to mention what I would do in that situation. Considering all the other circumstances, assuming you're not close to a populated shore where you might find help and that GW sharks are often quite large with a big bite radius....you might just want to place your head between your legs and kiss your a** goodbye if the shark actually bit you Great whites rarely, if ever, actually CONSUME human flesh. They will bite a human to see if they're something they like to eat though. A "mere" taste test from a 15 foot, 3000lbs great white shark might just result in being left with half of your torso or one leg though. In somewhere isolated from help....even a missing hand alone would result in death from blood loss very quickly.

I have done my own "experiments" with sharks. I was in the Florida Keys (I live in mainland South Florida) one time with my ex-girlfriend. Unlike myself....she is not a scuba diver, snorkeler, or an outdoors/nature person in general at all. Her idea of nature is a potted Chamaedorea palm at the local shopping mall....lol.

Anyway....we were standing on a bridge looking into the clear, calm water. There was about 7 or 8 feet between where we were standing and the water. There was a fishing line tied to the railing on the bridge. At the end of the line, a dead snapper fish was floating with the fishhook firmly implanted in it's mouth. I looked at my ex and told her....."watch this... i'm going to shake this line as hard as I can and I can almost guarantee you a shark will show up within no more than a half-hour". She refused to believe me and I started shaking the line and the dead fish started to shake with equal violence. Lo and behold...after roughly ten minutes of this, a fairly small Caribbean reef shark showed up and started to investigate the dead fish. After a few brief passes, it swam away for whatever reason and did not decide to take a bite of the fish.

Now granted....there are ALOT of sharks in this particular area. Furthermore...there was likely fish blood in the water and considering this bridge is regularly frequented by fishermen, it may not have even been blood from the dead snapper. Still...I am confident that the shark was at least partially attracted by the motion I was generating by shaking the fish.

Anyway....i've been a scuba diver and avid snorkeler since I was 11 y/o. I have seen plenty of sharks over the years, though usually not ones which pose a significant threat to humans. I have never seen a great white or a tiger though and I wouldn't really want to IF it was bigger than me and I was in the water with it. I would LOVE to do a cage dive with big great whites or tigers though!! ! Such an experience would definitely be categorized as a peak one in my book.

Why wouldn't you, by necessity, see a great white fin? The OP didn't specify whether the shark was about to attack or not. He simply said you SAW the fin and identified it as a fin belonging to a great white. shark. You are correct about their usual method of attack though.

Last edited by Horus on 15 Nov 2010, 3:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

Who said there would be any floating debris from the plane? Even if there was.....who said it would be readily accessible? Lastly....who said it would be a piece of debris (like a sharp piece of a metal from the plane or something) which would do any damage to the shark? Ditto for dead humans. There are usually currents in the ocean of course and most, if not all, of the dead would be quickly carried off by them. Furthermore..... a few recently deceased humans would possibly sink anyway. Not everyone has an equal amount of buoyancy in the first place and while most would float to one degree or another, you still might lose a few of your potential weapons to sinkage. Couple this with the MANY you'd likely lose from the currents and you don't have a terrific chance of grabbing and throwing any dead people towards the shark.

Now saltwater IS more dense and therefore, easier to float in than freshwater. Therefore, this would at least be one (however meaningless it may or may not prove....and "may prove" seems more way likely to me considering much of what i've said/will say in this post) thing in your favor in terms of the number of floating bodies. Still....if this plane was filled with a large percentage of Americans, you might have a goodly amount of fat bodies at your disposal....lol.

J/k there....but still...a large number of relatively fat bodies available to you would have it's pros and cons. Fat floats better than muscle/bone....so you'd probably have more bodies which remained floating (irrespective of whether the currents, waves, etc....were working in your favor or not and they most likely would not be) than you would if the plane was filled with a bunch of olympic athletes. OTOH....good luck THROWING bodies which may weigh 200lbs or more towards the shark. Sure you might be able to PUSH/SHOVE them towards Jaws, but not THROW them.

In sum and with all due respect....your plans of action here sound something close to epic failures.

Quite a few conditions and factors would need to be in your favor here and considering the capricious nature of the overall circumstances and the sea AND Murphy's law in general.......few, if any, likely would be.

Sorry.....just being honest.

Last edited by Horus on 15 Nov 2010, 4:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

BTW Corp900, what exactly does this thread have to do with autism?

LOL...good one


Still....if this was actually a serious plan....you would of course want swim against the direction of the current which would likely be present before the blood made it to the nostrils of other sharks which may be in the general vicinity.

On the down side....swimming against the current would hinder (greatly so if the current was strong of course) your ability to swim away quickly.

I would be very confused and wonder if I weren't hallucinating, because this does not conform to great white hunting behavior.

This is the random discussion thread...

Unless it was my imagination (which is possible....I was exhausted while reading this thread and replying to various posters in it) it WAS in General autism last night and was recently moved here to RD.

Correct I moved it here.

Spread yourself out as much as possible to look larger
open your eyes under the water and look for the shark
swim towards it

Great Whites are chase animals and if you behave in the opposite manner to all other marine animals in that situation you will confuse them.
Do not act like food and you will not be eaten.