Evacuation FR8841

[MEL_Traveller]

I expect there have been many passenger/cabin crew initiated evacuations. Once the crash is over (BA's 777, or Asiana), then it's a pretty obvious thing to be doing. On the other hand, passengers opening a door into fire, because they were never trained to check, or charging out into a still running engine, is bound to put a dampener on proceedings.

Agree. But the possible chance of crew inaction means we have no choice other than to accept (or try and minimise) the risks associated with a pax/cabin initiated evacuation.

 

[jb747]

What are the relative risks? I’d consider the likelyhood of inaction by the crew would be less likely than that of precipitate action by passengers, who, after all, have no training, and mostly don’t listen to the safety briefings.

One issue that is real, and comes up in virtually every emergency you ever read about, whether it involves a plunge or not, is that of time scales. Passengers have nothing to do, so for them, the time spent actually carrying out the procedures involved (in anything) always stretches out. For the crew, it’s the opposite. From the time I decide to go for an evacuation, it will take at least 30 seconds to complete the procedure. If you evacuate before that, engines will still be running, which means that slides will be blown around (as happened in a US evacuation, in which the crew went before the pilots called it), so not only will you lose the use of some slides from blast, but you’re also exposed to the intakes.

Perhaps passengers should use that time to get their luggage down from the overhead, so that they can abandon it in the aisles.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

A couple examples of potential crew inaction from recent times... Asiana (pilot failed to appreciate situation and order evacuation), Singapore Airlines at Changi (wing on fire), BA at LAS (pilot failed to complete checklist and shut down an engine, rendering slides aft of the engine useless).

And in circumstances where one of the flight crew has caused the accident, can they be subsequently relied on the competently handle an evacuation? (Impossible at the time of the incident for passengers or crew to know this, but it is nevertheless a potential issue.)

The risks you mention are very real, but there may be a circumstance where an unauthorised passenger initiated evacuation may turn out to be the right course of action. This is ultimately conceded in the report into evacuations by the Royal Aeronautical Society: https://www.aerosociety.com/media/8...-of-commercial-passenger-aeroplanes-paper.pdf (final para at 9.2.1)

 

[jonboixxx]

I have had occasion to reflect on my wife's and my experience and my reactions in the seconds and minutes after the event, whilst we have been holidaying in Europe. I have read all the comments and in reply can say that I only write to provide testament to what happened, to the interest or otherwise of others.
I understand the comments concerning how situations should be dealt with, but my experience was that passengers were initially oblivious to any instructions that may or may not have been given and were trying to escape a small explosion and then fire in the cabin.
My reality was that there was a perceived threat, firstly evidenced by shrieking of passengers who were charging up the aisle from forward of row 12 and almost instantaneously manifest in visible smoke and smell of burning. Anyone that has experienced a panicked or mob situation might understand the momentary hysteria that ensued. I had a choice to leave my seat and follow my wife or sit and hope for the best scenario. Was it a shoe-bomber scenario, deliberate lighting, accidental (as it turns out)? As everyone would know, fire and smoke in a confined space is incompatible with life and I think that is what passengers further back responded to, to which forward rows reacted to, not quite knowing what the threat was. It would not take a lot of flammable under-seat luggage to create a significant fire. As it turned out a fellow Aussie in 12 or 13 doused the fire. Crew would not have made it anywhere to that row, for passengers filling the aisles to escape the fire.
When I arrived at the slide, the crew were assisting pax down. I'm unsure who opened the door or deployed the slide and there was a throng of people behind me pushing to exit the aircraft.
At the bottom of the slide, I did for a time assist people in front of me that were less mobile and couldn't jump clear. From a personal safety point of view, should I have stopped to help? Probably not. Would I do it again? Probably. That's when you know for sure what you would do in a perceived crisis.
In summary, despite what most flyers would hope, the panic and noise of people shouting in different languages, didn't assist hearing any instructions to evacuate or otherwise from cabin or flight crew. Would I fly Ryanair again? Yes, I've flown previously without incident or delay and sometimes there are limited flight options in Europe to resort destinations on certain days, to avoid many many hours on trains or ferries (which also derail and sink).

 

[jonboixxx]

Sorry, forgot to add that I do agree that the number of pax that evacuated with cabin bags was ridiculous. My wife was very happy to recover her LV on re-boarding the new aircraft!

 

[jb747]

A couple examples of potential crew inaction from recent times... Asiana (pilot failed to appreciate situation and order evacuation), Singapore Airlines at Changi (wing on fire), BA at LAS (pilot failed to complete checklist and shut down an engine, rendering slides aft of the engine useless).

In the case Asiana, they'd outright crashed...there's not much argument about the evacuation being started immediately.

Singair at Changi is quite different. Whilst I disagree with the crew decision, it wasn't inaction on their part, but a response to the fact that a fire truck (purely accidentally) happened to be quite close at hand. The outcome probably vindicates them. I expect that would probably be a classic case where random passengers are likely to have opened a door that should stay shut.

BA in Vegas, and I think AA in Chicago, are good examples of why you need to wait for the engines to be shut down. I'm sure it would seem like an eternity, but it's important.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

In the case Asiana, they'd outright crashed...there's not much argument about the evacuation being started immediately.

Singair at Changi is quite different. Whilst I disagree with the crew decision, it wasn't inaction on their part, but a response to the fact that a fire truck (purely accidentally) happened to be quite close at hand. The outcome probably vindicates them. I expect that would probably be a classic case where random passengers are likely to have opened a door that should stay shut.

BA in Vegas, and I think AA in Chicago, are good examples of why you need to wait for the engines to be shut down. I'm sure it would seem like an eternity, but it's important.

Agree... BA was a good example where the engine needed to be shut down, but that didn’t happen due to pilot error. Passengers and cabin crew could have been waiting for a command that never came had they been waiting for confirmation the engine had been shut down.

The outcome vindicating the decisision, I guess we have to apply the same to any potential cabin crew or passenger initiated evacuation. In the case of the Ryanair, I imagine there would have been an initial disconnect between the flightdeck (unaware of the incident) and what was happening inside the cabin. The outcome could potentially have been worse had passengers not been able to exit the aircraft (essentially crushing passengers in the attempt to get away from the smoke).

 

[jb747]

The full BA report is here: https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/R...tID=20150908X35241&AKey=1&RType=HTML&IType=FA

Whilst the Captain did err in ordering the evacuation before actually running the checklist, his error was picked up by both the relief pilot and the FO. The problem wasn't that the passengers would have been waiting forever, but rather that they should have been kept waiting longer. Passenger initiated evacuations, in any similar case, would very likely have exactly the same outcome, as they are unlikely to be aware of an engine's status.

Uncontrolled evacuations have any number of issues. The engines might not even be the most important. For instance, cabin crew, after setting off a slide, wait for it to properly inflate before allowing evacuation from their door. Leaping out of an aircraft on to a deflated, or only partially inflated slide, could also have nasty ramifications. The Ryanair front slide doesn't appear to be fully inflated, but I guess it's only a 737...