SheikhDjibouti wrote:

...laptops can be easily replaced, paid for by the airline insurance
....Insurance (again)
....charge it to the airline.

I suggest you have an overly optimistic view of what airlines are actually willing to reimburse when it comes to lost luggage.

Look at that bag, takes 3-4 seconds to open a bin, remove it and with a bag you are moving slower, that's so messed up

If ever anyone here finds themelves in a similar scenario. Never leave via the aisle which becomes blocked. Go over the seat backs and get out

F9Animal wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

cc2314 wrote:

Muscle memory is a term used for the rebound effect a previously trained person gets when they return to the gym.
The brain is the issue here,any ingrained patterns of behavior in this situation should be ignored simply by the smell of smoke.

That's not how the brain works. Even under "normal" stressful situations, such as being on a sim check, we make mistakes that baffle us later. As mentioned above, the brain does peculiar things under stress, and the higher the level of stress, the higher the level of peculiar. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why we train for abnormal situations. That way if we have an engine failure or something for real, we can fall back on a learned and conditioned set of responses in the initial phases of the situation, when stress is highest.

Interesting! I am not a pilot, but I am a professional driver. I drove buses for several years. One day I pulled up to a stop and a teenager pulled out a gun, pointed it at me, and pulled the trigger several times. Instant reaction was to slam down the gas pedal and get the eff out of there! But!!! When I did that, the bus didn't move. I kept slamming down the gas pedal like 3 times and the bus wouldnt move. I literally forgot how to drive a freaking bus for a minute. The back doors were still open, so the interlock was on. I shut the back door after over a minute of this. Then I slammed down the gas pedal again, and the bus wouldnt move! Eventually I released the emergency brake and the bus finally moved. We played back the recording the next day, and I was in total shock at how stupid I was. During this, I made several stupid comments. Comments that the police questioned! Like, why did you say that? I honestly couldn't remember even saying a word!

We all react different in emergencies.

Your story was great insight and a great parallel to this sad story.

I remember once I had an 18-wheeler backing up into my car and I for the life of me couldn’t get it into reverse. I got it into neutral and park and neutral again. But not reverse. Panic does some things to the brain. Not excusing grabbing bags. But also say with a bit of humility, I don’t exactly know how I would act only how I would hope to act.

So terrible words cannot be found. Can we move the discussion on to something more aviation focused than human psychology. We here on ANet will never understand why people do what they do. People do things in their every day we cant explain, why do we feel that under immensely stressful conditions people would act any different.
Does anyone know what the burn times are of CFRP vs conventional materials. Both in regards to heat transfer and failure?

AvroLanc wrote:

So terrible words cannot be found. Can we move the discussion on to something more aviation focused than human psychology. We here on ANet will never understand why people do what they do. People do things in their every day we cant explain, why do we feel that under immensely stressful conditions people would act any different.
Does anyone know what the burn times are of CFRP vs conventional materials. Both in regards to heat transfer and failure?

Human psychology is a big part of aviation. It is a large part of the human factors exam you have to take for your ATPL in most of the world.

AVB wrote:

With the wings and engines basically intact, why did only the rear fuselage burn? There’s no fuel in the rear fuselage so what caught alight? Was there a fire already ragging in the cargo hold prior to landing?

My hypothesis: Wing tanks punctured by the landing gear on impact. Massive fuel leak. Since the plane was still moving forward fuel leaked out behind the wing, not forward. Thus the fire was at the rear, not at the front.

B777LRF wrote:

xmp125a wrote:

mtzguerrero wrote:

I have the impression that usual FBW pilots can get used to make strong flight control inputs with the confidence that the plane's computers will "correct" them in predictable ways, so it's reasonable to finish thinking that these are not corrections but just desirable outputs from what becomes being your everyday flying style.

I am not a pilot, but AFAIK Airbus pilots are trained to fly in all (three) laws and should be able to control plane in all cases. What you are describing would be indeed very dangerous.

Not only dangerous, but more importantly factually incorrect. Airbus FBW logic switches to direct law at around 50ft on the approach to landing. Thus every single FBW Airbus which has ever landed, did so in direct- (no protections) rather than normal (full envelope protection) law.

No. You're still in Normal Law during the flare and protections remain in place.

An Airbus switches to Flare Mode at 50ft (100ft on A350). At that point the stabiliser is frozen and pitch changes from load factor command to direct stick to elevator relationship. Lateral control remains the same until touchdown when it transitions to Ground Mode.

SurlyBonds wrote:

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

...laptops can be easily replaced, paid for by the airline insurance
....Insurance (again)
....charge it to the airline.

I suggest you have an overly optimistic view of what airlines are actually willing to reimburse when it comes to lost luggage.

Finally someone said it.

The cost of putting everything in the hold would be massive. Just the additional insurance costs for everyone involved. Checked luggage is regularly lost, stolen, broken into. Plus the additional cost of handling all that luggage instead of having someone carry their own.

As someone also mentioned, all those laptop batteries in the hold would make me rather uncomfortable. If a laptop battery starts overheating in an overhead bin, that's an easily manageable situation. A cargo fire, no matter how minor, is serious business.

I'm all for figuring out how to stop people taking hand luggage on an evacuation, but I'm dead set against stopping hand luggage altogether.

hongkongflyer wrote:

I think it is time to re-think the evacuation requirements too.
As new models tend to become longer and longer (compared to their previous models),
new criterias should be added.
For example rather then only using the exits on one side, requirements such as only those exits at the front/ rear of the plane (both sides) should be added.

Clearly in this case, half of the exits were useful, but all were located at the front of the cabin. Times for people sitting at the back to reach “useable” exits (in this case those at the front) should be taken into account, although I agree that the requirements may be longer then 90 seconds.

So all new models should pass two tests regarding the evucation: 1) only using one side 2) only using exits at the front / rear of the plane

The requirement is half the exits, not "one side". Evacuation tests are done with half the doors blocked, randomly selected.

goosebayguy wrote:

If ever anyone here finds themelves in a similar scenario. Never leave via the aisle which becomes blocked. Go over the seat backs and get out

Agreed. Do not stay passive.

Starlionblue wrote:

hongkongflyer wrote:

I think it is time to re-think the evacuation requirements too.
As new models tend to become longer and longer (compared to their previous models),
new criterias should be added.
For example rather then only using the exits on one side, requirements such as only those exits at the front/ rear of the plane (both sides) should be added.

Clearly in this case, half of the exits were useful, but all were located at the front of the cabin. Times for people sitting at the back to reach “useable” exits (in this case those at the front) should be taken into account, although I agree that the requirements may be longer then 90 seconds.

So all new models should pass two tests regarding the evucation: 1) only using one side 2) only using exits at the front / rear of the plane

The requirement is half the exits, not "one side". Evacuation tests are done with half the doors blocked, randomly selected.

As always StarlionBlue your thoughts on this thread are much appreciated.

While I have known that it is half - not one side - before, it didn’t hit me until this crash that the random selection can be quite advantageous given I’d think one in back and one in front is a better evac option than say 2 in the front. It isn’t getting through the door that’s the problem. It’s the journey to the door. Going from back to front or vise versa is a long way to go in 90 seconds with 100-500 people (depending on type). It might be worth thinking through future certifications that everyone has to go the same direction. Something tells me the 90 second requirement might be though for most to certify at that point.

ptwings wrote:

eielef wrote:

In the AFP Video, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugc0tTyFvD8) there are a couple of things that call my attention.

In this other longer video from another angle you can see people later trying to climb the slide
Very shocking these videos, people in the rear probably never had a chance. RIP

https://youtu.be/-5OnYm5uIE8

Amazing is that at 3:30 one guy gets back in. He throws something out at about 3:30 before sliding down chute at 3:50

SuseJ772 wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

hongkongflyer wrote:

I think it is time to re-think the evacuation requirements too.
As new models tend to become longer and longer (compared to their previous models),
new criterias should be added.
For example rather then only using the exits on one side, requirements such as only those exits at the front/ rear of the plane (both sides) should be added.

Clearly in this case, half of the exits were useful, but all were located at the front of the cabin. Times for people sitting at the back to reach “useable” exits (in this case those at the front) should be taken into account, although I agree that the requirements may be longer then 90 seconds.

So all new models should pass two tests regarding the evucation: 1) only using one side 2) only using exits at the front / rear of the plane

The requirement is half the exits, not "one side". Evacuation tests are done with half the doors blocked, randomly selected.

As always StarlionBlue your thoughts on this thread are much appreciated.

While I have known that it is half - not one side - before, it didn’t hit me until this crash that the random selection can be quite advantageous given I’d think one in back and one in front is a better evac option than say 2 in the front. It isn’t getting through the door that’s the problem. It’s the journey to the door. Going from back to front or vise versa is a long way to go in 90 seconds with 100-500 people (depending on type). It might be worth thinking through future certifications that everyone has to go the same direction. Something tells me the 90 second requirement might be though for most to certify at that point.

The objective of the random selection is not to give the test subjects any bias or hint. Your average passenger tends to go forward, because a) they came in that way and b) they are already pointed that way. This is why many safety briefings include "the nearest exit may be behind you" or similar.

Certainly, lessons will be learned from this crash, as from most crashes. Seeing that fire, however, I have the sinking feeling that most of the passengers in the back never had a chance, blocked aisles or not. The onset was sudden, violent, and unexpected, so most of the back section pax probably succumbed to smoke inhalation in seconds. A very different situation from a slowly developing cabin smoke/fire scenario, where you can move the passengers to another section, hand out wet blankets to hold over the face, etc.

Nothing against the fire department they do a great job. But in the few more minutes it might take for them to arrive. Airports should just install a giant sprinkler system along the runway and turn that on at the push of a button when this happens.

snasteve wrote:

Nothing against the fire department they do a great job. But in the few more minutes it might take for them to arrive. Airports should just install a giant sprinkler system along the runway and turn that on at the push of a button when this happens.

That would cost trillions worldwide in construction and maintenance for a once in a blue moon event.

If we're going to improve safety, how about we spend the money on stuff with actual benefit, like decreasing the number of runway incursions?

Ugh. It’s absolutely gut wrenching watching the videos from this again, now knowing the number of fatalities. The misreporting on this early on is completely unacceptable.

May all who perished RIP.

denkcflyer wrote:

Ugh. It’s absolutely gut wrenching watching the videos from this again, now knowing the number of fatalities. The misreporting on this early on is completely unacceptable.

May all who perished RIP.

The misreporting is, unfortunately, completely normal. "Breaking news" outlets are focused on getting the story out because they're trying to sell. Getting all the facts right is not the objective.

Starlionblue wrote:

SurlyBonds wrote:

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

...laptops can be easily replaced, paid for by the airline insurance
....Insurance (again)
....charge it to the airline.

I suggest you have an overly optimistic view of what airlines are actually willing to reimburse when it comes to lost luggage.

Finally someone said it.

The cost of putting everything in the hold would be massive. Just the additional insurance costs for everyone involved. Checked luggage is regularly lost, stolen, broken into. Plus the additional cost of handling all that luggage instead of having someone carry their own.

As someone also mentioned, all those laptop batteries in the hold would make me rather uncomfortable. If a laptop battery starts overheating in an overhead bin, that's an easily manageable situation. A cargo fire, no matter how minor, is serious business.

I'm all for figuring out how to stop people taking hand luggage on an evacuation, but I'm dead set against stopping hand luggage altogether.

hongkongflyer wrote:

I think it is time to re-think the evacuation requirements too.
As new models tend to become longer and longer (compared to their previous models),
new criterias should be added.
For example rather then only using the exits on one side, requirements such as only those exits at the front/ rear of the plane (both sides) should be added.

Clearly in this case, half of the exits were useful, but all were located at the front of the cabin. Times for people sitting at the back to reach “useable” exits (in this case those at the front) should be taken into account, although I agree that the requirements may be longer then 90 seconds.

So all new models should pass two tests regarding the evucation: 1) only using one side 2) only using exits at the front / rear of the plane

The requirement is half the exits, not "one side". Evacuation tests are done with half the doors blocked, randomly selected.

goosebayguy wrote:

If ever anyone here finds themelves in a similar scenario. Never leave via the aisle which becomes blocked. Go over the seat backs and get out

Agreed. Do not stay passive.

Current practice is using exits on either side,
They randomly select which side to be used.

Starlionblue wrote:

snasteve wrote:

Nothing against the fire department they do a great job. But in the few more minutes it might take for them to arrive. Airports should just install a giant sprinkler system along the runway and turn that on at the push of a button when this happens.

That would cost trillions worldwide in construction and maintenance for a once in a blue moon event.

If we're going to improve safety, how about we spend the money on stuff with actual benefit, like decreasing the number of runway incursions?

Well if it cost trillions of dollars really then whoever’s doing it is incompetent. Definitely don’t go with the guy who quotes you a $1 trillion price tag. That’s more than the budget of the United States defense.

There is a book titled “Tiger on a Leash” by Alvin Moscow. It details the story of Northeast Airlines Flight 823, a DC-6A that crashed on Rikers Island in 1957. It describes in detail the behavior of the passengers, which was largely every man for himself. Reportedly one passenger was knocked down and stepped on. The passenger retained the foot print on her back for years after the crash. (It May have been a male passenger, I read the book almost 40 years ago and the details are sketchy.)

The point is that human behavior hasn’t changed much in 62 years. People are going to grab their bags, help others and endanger others by selfish acts. I believe that one passenger with an authoritative voice yelled for”everybody to remain calm and keep in your seats,” possibly causing some of the casualties.

If you haven’t been in a crash, you don’t know how you’d behave, and if you’ve been in one, you can’t be sure how you’d behave in another one. Human foibles have to be removed from the equation to the greatest extent possible by design.

snasteve wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

snasteve wrote:

Nothing against the fire department they do a great job. But in the few more minutes it might take for them to arrive. Airports should just install a giant sprinkler system along the runway and turn that on at the push of a button when this happens.

That would cost trillions worldwide in construction and maintenance for a once in a blue moon event.

If we're going to improve safety, how about we spend the money on stuff with actual benefit, like decreasing the number of runway incursions?

Well if it cost trillions of dollars really then whoever’s doing it is incompetent. Definitely don’t go with the guy who quotes you a $1 trillion price tag. That’s more than the budget of the United States defense.

Maybe not trillions, but I wouldn't be surprised if the cost would be in the hundreds of billions. Even at only 10 million per runway, for the 17500 runways with IATA codes worldwide, that's 175bn. And that's only construction.

All for an extremely rare event. Again, if you're going to spend money on safety, how about synthetic vision, runway incursion prevention, more recurrent training with regards to automation airmanship... Much more bang for your buck.

Armadillo1 wrote:

People really took hand luggage from the shelves, but only because it was still impossible to go. “I had the documents there, it was I who grabbed them and, when the movement had already begun, I went ahead.”

One point that the translation misses: "documents" in Russian refers to internal passports, which are effectively a national identity card. They typically get issued twice in a Russian citizen's life. I've no idea what happens if you lose your internal passport, but I can't imagine it's easy to replace.

Starlionblue wrote:

Maybe not trillions, but I wouldn't be surprised if the cost would be in the hundreds of billions. Even at only 10 million per runway, for the 17500 runways with IATA codes worldwide, that's 175bn. And that's only construction.

I realize this is a bit hypothetical, but that said, don't golf courses and agribusinesses the world over install sprinklers over a larger area for a lot less cost that this? The sprinklers themselves would obviously be more specialized at a runway than on a golf course, but I can't believe it would be on the order of billions of dollars.

And lots of airports are installing Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) technology at the end of runways to curtail overruns. That WN plane that overran the runway in Burbank last year was stopped before it could get too far off the runway thanks to EMAS. Would sprinklers really be that much more complicated than EMAS?

Starlionblue wrote:

Finally someone said it.... I'm all for figuring out how to stop people taking hand luggage on an evacuation, but I'm dead set against stopping hand luggage altogether.

There's no "finally" about it; I said as much upthread!

But to avoid any confusion: I completely agree, for two reasons.

1. Banning cabin baggage would massively inconvenience millions of air passengers each day, for what *might* be an incremental improvement in safety during some evacuations. I don't necessarily see that tradeoff as worth it. As others have noted, it would also increase insurance costs and, even if it shortened lines at security, will increase lines at check-in.

All safety calculations involve a degree of tradeoffs. Installing passenger seats facing the rear of the cabin would be safer than installing them facing forward, but pax like to see where they are going, rather than where they've been. So in that case, nearly every airline in the world situates the seats facing forward.

(When I was very young I flew on a Trident with rear-facing seats; I still remember that, but nothing else from the trip!)

2. Even a few cases of someone going without essential medicines (diabetics with insulin, etc.) could more than obviate any safety gains. Even one case of a battery fire in the cargo hold that could easily have been extinguished in the cabin will obviate any safety gains.

Judging from a lot of these comments here, I'd say that the people proposing to ban cabin baggage have an pre-existing axe to grind against cabin baggage, and they're using SU1492 as a pretext to push their agenda.

SurlyBonds wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

Maybe not trillions, but I wouldn't be surprised if the cost would be in the hundreds of billions. Even at only 10 million per runway, for the 17500 runways with IATA codes worldwide, that's 175bn. And that's only construction.

I realize this is a bit hypothetical, but that said, don't golf courses and agribusinesses the world over install sprinklers over a larger area for a lot less cost that this? The sprinklers themselves would obviously be more specialized at a runway than on a golf course, but I can't believe it would be on the order of billions of dollars.

And lots of airports are installing Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) technology at the end of runways to curtail overruns. That WN plane that overran the runway in Burbank last year was stopped before it could get too far off the runway thanks to EMAS. Would sprinklers really be that much more complicated than EMAS?

Golf course and agribusiness sprinklers are for watering grass and plants. The output is not nearly enough to deal with a big fire.

Sprinklers are way more complicated than EMAS. EMAS is just a different kind of surface at the end of the runway, with frangible materials. Once built, EMAS it doesn't require much in the way of maintenance. Sprinklers systems require plumbing, control systems, a water source, leak resistance, regular testing... All for no benefit except in a one in a billion scenario. In contrast, runway excursions where EMAS can be beneficial are not nearly as uncommon as aircraft with uncontrollable fires on the runway.

BTW my maths was off. The cost would be significantly higher. It's 17500 airports with IATA codes worldwide, not runways, and many airports have multiple runways.

SurlyBonds wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

Finally someone said it.... I'm all for figuring out how to stop people taking hand luggage on an evacuation, but I'm dead set against stopping hand luggage altogether.

There's no "finally" about it; I said as much upthread!

But to avoid any confusion: I completely agree, for two reasons.

1. Banning cabin baggage would massively inconvenience millions of air passengers each day, for what *might* be an incremental improvement in safety during some evacuations. I don't necessarily see that tradeoff as worth it. As others have noted, it would also increase insurance costs and, even if it shortened lines at security, will increase lines at check-in.

All safety calculations involve a degree of tradeoffs. Installing passenger seats facing the rear of the cabin would be safer than installing them facing forward, but pax like to see where they are going, rather than where they've been. So in that case, nearly every airline in the world situates the seats facing forward.

(When I was very young I flew on a Trident with rear-facing seats; I still remember that, but nothing else from the trip!)

2. Even a few cases of someone going without essential medicines (diabetics with insulin, etc.) could more than obviate any safety gains. Even one case of a battery fire in the cargo hold that could easily have been extinguished in the cabin will obviate any safety gains.

Judging from a lot of these comments here, I'd say that the people proposing to ban cabin baggage have an pre-existing axe to grind against cabin baggage, and they're using SU1492 as a pretext to push their agenda.

I missed your initial comment on this upthread. Apologies.

Good points made. Any safety improvement (not even a certain one) must be weighed against the additional cost in normal operations.

Personally, I'd much rather not have more potentially dangerous stuff in the cargo hold where it can't be accessed in flight.

What if it was made illegal to bring bags down an inflated slide, and this was mentioned as part of the cabin safely announcement? Human behavior is strange, people hearing this over and over might cause it to sink in, may cause people to want to avoid the shame of being charged criminally for this, may cause people to make peace with losing their belongings.

Not familiar with the SSJ at all, do the engines have thrust reversers?

I watch the videos of how quickly the fire moved forward and like the Airtours accident in MAN, I’m wondering if thrust reversers, if installed, played a role.

remcor wrote:

What if it was made illegal to bring bags down an inflated slide, and this was mentioned as part of the cabin safely announcement? Human behavior is strange, people hearing this over and over might cause it to sink in, may cause people to want to avoid the shame of being charged criminally for this, may cause people to make peace with losing their belongings.

Are panicking people particularly known for considering the long-term consequences of their panicking as they're panicking?

Not doing something because you don't want to get punished for it is a rational response, sure--but so is leaving your bags on board as you evacuate an airplane. The problem is that panicking people, by definition, are, through no fault of their own, *not* responding to the situation rationally. So it's not clear to me how something predicated on people making a rational decision is going to effect any behavioral change here.

Best to try to design systems that minimize the opportunity for panicking people to impede the safety of themselves and others (part of which, of course, includes minimizing to the extent feasible the likelihood of such scenarios arising in the first place).

SuseJ772 wrote:

I remember once I had an 18-wheeler backing up into my car and I for the life of me couldn’t get it into reverse. I got it into neutral and park and neutral again. But not reverse. Panic does some things to the brain. Not excusing grabbing bags. But also say with a bit of humility, I don’t exactly know how I would act only how I would hope to act.

The awful human specimen with huge bag who walked to Aeroflot at the airport and then complained because he did not get a ticket refund immediately certainly does not fit into that category. He is basically daring the government to prosecute him and in Russia, he just might get his wish fulfilled to shut him up and calm the outrage.

Starlionblue wrote:

The cost of putting everything in the hold would be massive.

Why are we arguing about things that 20 years ago were a non-issue? Bulky stuff in the hold, one SMALL bag 3-5 kg (containing valuables) in the cabin. If it is small enough, goes under the seat and you can take it with you, if larger (e.g. larger laptop) in the overhead bin and it stays there during evacuation. If you have bulky valuable stuff (the size now people put in the cabin - for example pro photographer), you pay extra, and are allowed to take it in the cabin. Giving passenger economical consideration (don't wanna pay if they don't want to) this would solve almost all problems.

Geez people, how did you travel in 90ties? I remember pretty well that nothing larger than 5 kg was allowed on the plane back then.

Again, if you have valuable AND bulky stuff in your bag, you packed it wrong, pay for it. Most valuable stuff is not bulky.

The main problem is now that airlines with their pricing policy actually endorse behaviour that is unsafe and is causing long queues everywhere (boarding, security, leaving the aircraft). Not good.

SurlyBonds wrote:

Judging from a lot of these comments here, I'd say that the people proposing to ban cabin baggage have an pre-existing axe to grind against cabin baggage, and they're using SU1492 as a pretext to push their agenda.

Some of us traveled in 90s and we know that passengers can easily split the luggage into bulky (large, checked) and valuable part (small, goes into the cabin). That is how airplane travel operated for decades. Huge cabin bags are very recent thing!

xmp125a wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

The cost of putting everything in the hold would be massive.

Why are we arguing about things that 20 years ago were a non-issue? Bulky stuff in the hold, one SMALL bag 3-5 kg (containing valuables) in the cabin. If it is small enough, goes under the seat and you can take it with you, if larger (e.g. larger laptop) in the overhead bin and it stays there during evacuation. If you have bulky valuable stuff (the size now people put in the cabin - for example pro photographer), you pay extra, and are allowed to take it in the cabin. Giving passenger economical consideration (don't wanna pay if they don't want to) this would solve almost all problems.

Geez people, how did you travel in 90ties? I remember pretty well that nothing larger than 5 kg was allowed on the plane back then.

Again, if you have valuable AND bulky stuff in your bag, you packed it wrong, pay for it. Most valuable stuff is not bulky.

The main problem is now that airlines with their pricing policy actually endorse behaviour that is unsafe and is causing long queues everywhere (boarding, security, leaving the aircraft). Not good.

It wasn't a non-issue. The cost of baggage handling a few decades ago is exactly why companies put those hold luggage pricing policies in place. So they could save money. We could go back to the practice from those days, but we'd have to accept higher ticket prices due to higher costs. And apparently Joe Public is not ok with that.

xmp125a wrote:

Geez people, how did you travel in 90ties? I remember pretty well that nothing larger than 5 kg was allowed on the plane back then.

You remember incorrectly. Wheeled luggage was around back then, and garment bags were certainly around back then. It was certainly more than 5kg.

snasteve wrote:

Nothing against the fire department they do a great job. But in the few more minutes it might take for them to arrive. Airports should just install a giant sprinkler system along the runway and turn that on at the push of a button when this happens.

How many crashes in the past few years have resulted in a fireball and staying mainly in the confines of the runway area? Not enough to make it worth the investment.

Sure there have also been fires on taxiways and parked at the gate (Lufthansa A340 attached to a burning tug, that EgyptAir 777 and was the Las Vegas BA 777 on a taxiway?), but you can't cover an entire airport in big high pressure foam sprinklers.

Having seen the Air Crash Investigation episode on British Airtours 28M again a few weeks ago this accident seems very much like a repeat regarding the pasenger evacuation. A fast developing fire on a single aisle aircraft, not all exits available, people getting stuck up front as everyone tries to get out there. I would recommend everyone watching that episode if you have not already.

Smoke is a toxic fast killer. I'm just getting the feeling that luggage or not, most people in the back would barely have had a chance. It´s like déjà vu...

Armadillo1 wrote:

SurlyBonds wrote:

Armadillo1 wrote:

People really took hand luggage from the shelves, but only because it was still impossible to go. “I had the documents there, it was I who grabbed them and, when the movement had already begun, I went ahead.”

One point that the translation misses: "documents" in Russian refers to internal passports, which are effectively a national identity card. They typically get issued twice in a Russian citizen's life. I've no idea what happens if you lose your internal passport, but I can't imagine it's easy to replace.

no, it means any important paper

I hesitate to argue with a native speaker -- but I have heard it used many, many times to refer to internal passports. Of course, it can also refer to "documents" generically. From context, I think the guy in the interview was referring to his internal passport.

SuseJ772 wrote:

While I have known that it is half - not one side - before, it didn’t hit me until this crash that the random selection can be quite advantageous given I’d think one in back and one in front is a better evac option than say 2 in the front. It isn’t getting through the door that’s the problem. It’s the journey to the door. Going from back to front or vise versa is a long way to go in 90 seconds with 100-500 people (depending on type). It might be worth thinking through future certifications that everyone has to go the same direction. Something tells me the 90 second requirement might be though for most to certify at that point.

This is a very good point, and very hard to work out in an evacuation. In this plane, everyone is expected to run from the back to the front as fast as they can. But someone seating on row 18, e.g., can think: I was told to check for an emergency exit which was behind me. So he tries going back, and other passengers are pushing forward. It can create a very big chaos, with people quarreling in the aisle saying: try the back door, and the other say: there is fire there, and the one say: no, the fire is on the wing, there is safe. Open it. Well, many seconds can be lost, and lifes can be lost as well.

I'm not sure of the exact role of the crew during this evacuation, but maybe they should tell on the PA system: everyone evacuate from the front door only, and certainly remind them no to take any luggage nor sharp objects...

Maybe the aviation industry will do more tests on how people behave during evacuation, and add the fact that some people take their personal items with them, although prohibited...

eielef wrote:

This is a very good point, and very hard to work out in an evacuation. In this plane, everyone is expected to run from the back to the front as fast as they can. But someone seating on row 18, e.g., can think: I was told to check for an emergency exit which was behind me. So he tries going back, and other passengers are pushing forward. It can create a very big chaos, with people quarreling in the aisle saying: try the back door, and the other say: there is fire there, and the one say: no, the fire is on the wing, there is safe. Open it. Well, many seconds can be lost, and lifes can be lost as well.

I'm not sure of the exact role of the crew during this evacuation, but maybe they should tell on the PA system: everyone evacuate from the front door only, and certainly remind them no to take any luggage nor sharp objects...

Maybe the aviation industry will do more tests on how people behave during evacuation, and add the fact that some people take their personal items with them, although prohibited...

I don't think the PA system was working on the aircraft?

No evacuation procedure would have made a difference for the people in the back. You can see the spars of the fuselage structure in the flames 40 seconds after the plane came to a standstill. We can be sure that the fire was in the rear part of the cabin 10-15 seconds earlier. The people in the front survived because the movement of the plane and the wind pushed the fire away from the front. If the plane turns to the right with the tail facing the wind, fewer to no person would survive.

The combination of a huge fire, full tanks and a compromised fuselage structure, is not survivable.

Starlionblue wrote:

It wasn't a non-issue. The cost of baggage handling a few decades ago is exactly why companies put those hold luggage pricing policies in place. So they could save money. We could go back to the practice from those days, but we'd have to accept higher ticket prices due to higher costs. And apparently Joe Public is not ok with that.

Do you really thing the airlines charge you because for them is very expensive the baggage handling fees? No. They do it because they can profit. Now, charge for hand luggage (same revenue), but make the other free... Overhead bin compartments are too packed these days, people is angry because THEIR bags don't fit, they don't want to put their bags under the seat in front of them (their feet doesn't fit the VERY tight pitch of airlines these days)... AND cargo holds are mostly empty.

Some months ago, in the airport in the town I was born, at the same time landed FlyBondi (B738 - Low Cost, luggage at a extra/expensive charge) and Aerolíneas Argentinas (B738, luggage at that moment free). Flybondi (LF160/189) used only one baggage cart, while Aerolineas Argentinas (LF160/170) used four full ones. As there are baggage belts, those in FlyBondi left in almost no time, those of AR waited some 10 minutes or less..
Now, AR charges for baggage (but is not a lowcost yet). And people puts everything on their handluggage. So boarding takes like forever, because people loves arguing with ground employees: I paid a very expensive ticket, I'm not flying in a LowCost, i'm not paying this shit. If it doesn't fit in the box (because it must fit in a box), I'm not paying a dime extra.

c933103 wrote:

I don't think the PA system was working on the aircraft?

If I'm not mistaken, there is as standard crew equipment a number of megaphones, exactly planned for this situation...

Armadillo1 wrote:

passport is a document but not all documents are passports
he is a mayor of city and can carry any important papers.

yes, it may be passport, may be not only, is it matter?

What kind of document is really irreplacable ?
( its loss going beyond nuisance or material loss.? )