The only way to stop this selfish practice is to start issuing heavy penalties to those caught doing it.

People are always going to retrieve items. Look how many people run back into a burning house to get an item that has a strong value only to them. The only way it will ever change is to not allow carry on items, simple as that.

People will not obey rules if they see there is no enforcement and can get away with it.
From they pictures I was amazed at what some people where carrying. They had just jumped of a burning plane and it looked to all the world as if they were walking to check-in for a flight.
Visable enforcement,name and shame.   

Quoting Shuttle12T (Reply 1): The only way to stop this selfish practice is to start issuing heavy penalties to those caught doing it.

Yeah, because folks that have the need to evacuate a plane are going to care about penalties .
There just needs to be a stronger statement in the pre loading about evacuation procedures.

Quoting readytotaxi (Reply 3): Visable enforcement,name and shame.

Evacuations are thankfully rare events. Most passengers--even many frequent fliers--never experience one. What evidence is there that enforcement will change people's behavior in the heat of the moment?

As far as the people who say "My work is vitally important to the company" or "time is money" etc when justifying taking their laptop, etc with them I only have this to say:

No, you're not that vital to your company's continued existence. If you were, you wouldn't be flying commercial, instead you'd be on a Gulfstream. Get over yourself, and GTFO of the aircraft.

Anyone who attempts to get or is seen with carry-on type luggage after an evacuation should be charged with reckless endangerment or whatever the local equivalent is.

There should be an automatic £5000 fine worldwide (based on video evidence) and a charge of 'Interfering with the safe evacuation of an aircraft'

It does not matter that they just survived an accident and should be forgiven. The people stuck behind them may not have got out because some were grabbing their bags from the overhead bins, so blocking the aisles.

Quoting ArmitageShanks (Reply 7): Anyone who attempts to get or is seen with carry-on type luggage after an evacuation should be charged with reckless endangerment or whatever the local equivalent is.

At least in the United States, recklessness requires a culpable state of mind. Is there evidence that all folks who take bags do so rationally?

I would leave anything not on my person. Probably a bit extreme but for that reason when I travel with a pen that is a family heirloom I take it out of my briefcase when I board and put clip it to my shirt in case I have to evacuate.

Anything else that I travel with is replaceable and isn't worth my life or the life of anyone else.

Yep... Always back up your devices, and try not to save any work onto a local drive.

I still stand by my comments that aircraft should have lockable over-head lockers (apart from where there is crew safety equipment). This means that at worst, people can only take the small items under the seat in front with them...

Based on recent evacuations, should safety briefings be changed and updated to increase passenger compliance?

Passengers need to be reminded retrieving personal belongings needlessly puts others at risk.

In an emergency situation, the only priority is getting off the aircraft safely.

Perhaps air travel has become so routine this point needs to be emphasized at the beginning and end of every safety briefing.

I don't think it's really practical to enforce these rules by fining offenders and I doubt it would have any preventative impact. I've never been in a situation in which I had to evacuate an aircraft but I can assure you if my exit was being delayed by a passenger(s) gather their belongings I would do whatever I could to hasten the process. If that means strong verbal coaxing and a not so gentle shove then so be it. I'd hate for my last thought to be I almost made it out if it wasn't for passengers who don't have their priorities straight.

I don't know if this is practical or even possible, but there are special instructions given to passengers sitting in exit rows so I wonder if there's a way to make a general announcement that it's every passenger's responsibility to expedite the evacuation process by preventing passengers from opening overhead bins in case of an emergency such as this.

Pavlov. We are wired to grab our bags. We instinctively do. Some people will never be able to stop it because they just are not thinking rationally.

You can fine, you can punish, but in the end so what. The odds are, the offender will never be in that position again.

You're standing there, waiting for the queue to move to an emergency exit....you grab your bag. Can see it happening...and the only solution is for other customers to rip it out of their hands and throw it.

Quoting Max Q (Reply 63): Ridiculous, and all of this bombastic talk from people judging others in a life threatening situation is just that. While I agree that bags should be left behind these people were terrified, and with good reason acted on instinct and perhaps not with the best logic, its called being human.

Generally agreed. The problem I have are the people (well one person really) here that without the fog of facing a threatening situation have already planned to grab their bags and imperil others because they think their time is so damn valuable.

Having the overhead bins be locked most certainly would have resulted in loss of life's as people fought to open them.

My camera will be 6 inches or less from my hand.

Anything else not physically on my person stays behind.

Being in a window seat, the main things slowing me down, will be the two people between me and the aisle.

Two suggestions that I have not read on this or the incident thread:

LOCK THE BINS!
In case of any evacuation order, some sort of bin locking device could be activated from the flight deck or by cabin crew. This seems a pretty straightforward solution to what I see as a very serious problem. No, it would not prevent folks from grabbing their underseat or other small items, but it would discourage rummaging through bins while the plane melts around you.

ADD SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT:
I find it odd that this has not worked it's way in to the safety announcement. Seems it would be pretty easy to add to the safety spiel. Will the orders still be ignored, Sure. But then my suggestion above has the last word. Leave first. Laptop later.

My two pennies...

BayouFlyer

Quoting bayouflyer (Reply 19): ADD SAFETY ANNOUNCEMENT: I find it odd that this has not worked it's way in to the safety announcement. Seems it would be pretty easy to add to the safety spiel. Will the orders still be ignored, Sure. But then my suggestion above has the last word. Leave first. Laptop later.

I thought they did say to leave your belongings and move swiftly to the exits in every safety briefing. I would imagine that in a planned evac (say the plane was airborne at the time), the briefing would focus on that part, and everyone would be paying close attention.

But then again, when the Ethiopian 767 went in the ocean, a whole lot of people were found to have inflated their life vests before exiting the aircraft, leading to their deaths, despite a similar warning likely having been given.

Quoting MrBuzzcut (Reply 6): As far as the people who say "My work is vitally important to the company" or "time is money" etc when justifying taking their laptop, etc with them I only have this to say: No, you're not that vital to your company's continued existence. If you were, you wouldn't be flying commercial, instead you'd be on a Gulfstream. Get over yourself, and GTFO of the aircraft.

I completely agree with you that paperwork or laptop/tablet isn't worth getting injured or killed or putting other passengers at an increased risk for harm.

But, you would be surprised how many small business owners are road warriors. If something were to happen to them, it could very well be the end of their businesses.

My wife used to work for a company called Acxiom, based in Little Rock. The CEO of the company owned the corporate fleet and leased it to the company. Far more employees flew on the fleet of Falcons than commercial. When the CEO was sacked, the new CEO, a protege of Ross Perot, terminated the lease and decreed that no one, including himself, needed to fly on private jet. The time savings from not having to deal with delays and connecting hubs did not justify the additional expense of flying on a private jet versus the cost of a plane ticket on AA, UA, DL, or WN.

If I am travelling with my laptop and the bag is on my knee or I am a lady similarly with a handbag on my knee what is safest for all concerened:

take the bag with me so its out of the way of obstructing anyone or

dither and try and find a safe place to leave it potentially causing a delay.

I most definitely accept that people who start fishing around in overhead bins for their bags during an evacuation are endangering their own and other peoples lives, but for people with bags on their laps or on the floor by their seat I think the situation is far less clear cut than those on this forum who are proposing heavy mandatory fines etc. seem to believe and in my view common sense should be allowed to prevail.

As most cabin crew insist that hand baggage goes in the overhead stowage for take off and landing, then all you have to do is lock the overhead lockers as soon as the engine start and then unlock them when the seat belt sign goes off.
Some thing similar for landing

littlevc10

Quoting jumpjets (Reply 22): If I am travelling with my laptop and the bag is on my knee or I am a lady similarly with a handbag on my knee

I don't think anyone here is seriously chiding bringing these items that are already on your person. It's the rollaboards in the overhead compartments that we're talking about.

All I can say is this...if I have to evac with my family, and you're busy retrieving your precious carry-on and am in my way, I'm running your *** over...if you die, it's due to your own stupidity.

I travel with a cross-bag (with my passport and valuables) and a carry-on. If an evacuation happens, I WOULD bring my cross-bag (if its directly in front of me), but certainly won't open the overhead compartment to get my carry-on or anything else! However, if the situation is so terrible that I might die if I do not evacuate I would leave everything and go!

Quoting Qatara340 (Reply 26): However, if the situation is so terrible that I might die if I do not evacuate I would leave everything and go!

How do YOU know if the situation is terrible or not?

What about the fact that your delay in determining for yourself whether or not the situation is terrible imperils others behind you? If you don't act until YOU think it's terrible, you've likely prevented some others from acting later.

The best course of action is to follow orders. Don't leave it to chance.

Pertaining to departing from Las Vegas, what happens if you have a significant amount of cash in your carry on? Like a professional poker player walking around with his net worth in his backpack? Most would agree that he/she would try to grab their backpack while exiting the plane. Insurance won't cover you saying you had $200k in your carry on...

Safety briefings always stress to leave your belongings behind and make your way to the nearest exit. Again people would be wasting valuable time trying to open a locked over head bin in hopes of retrieving a piece of luggage.

Quoting qf789 (Thread starter): What are the current rules for hand luggage on emergency evacuation? What should be the rules for hand luggage on emergency evacuation?

There's been an orgy of ranting in this thread but no answer to these questions. Why is grabbing your carry-ons during an evacuation bad? Is it the time you take? If I have to wait 10 sec before I can get out of my seat to evac I have time to get my carry-on from under the seat in front. On the other hand, if the problem is congestion caused by people hauling all their stuff down the aisle then it needs to be left behind.

I do not believe there are actual rules relating to your carryon during an evacuation. Merely highly recommended not to take it. Countless reasons not to, including time wasted as well as injury to you and others while sliding down with your luggage in hand. Also, in this day in age one has to consider the size of carry on's as well. Imagine if a roller case gets dropped and left in the aisle. On a good day this would impede the evacuation flow. Now imagine a cabin filling with smoke, you are crawling on the floor and run into that same suitcase. I can go on and on. As far as what needs to be done...USE COMMON SENSE. The goal is to get out as quickly as possible. If you consider something non replaceable simply leave it at home.

Quoting Shuttle12T (Reply 1): The only way to stop this selfish practice is to start issuing heavy penalties to those caught doing it.

Exactly - and the FAA should make an example out of the people that yesterday we're photographed running away from the aircraft with bags in hand.


Surely anyone from that flight that arrived back in the terminal, with there bags should have been arrested on the spot. Surely there would be some law that would cover it? e.g impeding an excavation.

I know in New Zealand, if you take you're bag with you say when the fire alarm goes off in your office you can get fined about $10,000NZD.

Quoting jumpjets (Reply 22): I most definitely accept that people who start fishing around in overhead bins for their bags during an evacuation are endangering their own and other peoples lives, but for people with bags on their laps or on the floor by their seat I think the situation is far less clear cut than those on this forum who are proposing heavy mandatory fines etc. seem to believe and in my view common sense should be allowed to prevail.

No one is arguing about taking something already on their person.

Quoting hivue (Reply 30): If I have to wait 10 sec before I can get out of my seat to evac I have time to get my carry-on from under the seat in front. On the other hand, if the problem is congestion caused by people hauling all their stuff down the aisle then it needs to be left behind.

This is ridiculous. Please show me the posts where people are upset with people taking a bag from the floor in front of them. Common sense dictates we're talking about people dragging actual luggage out of overheads, etc.

During the safety briefing/video, it is announced that it is a federal crime to carry luggage off the aircraft in an emergency.

In the event of an emergency, when the flight attendant announces evacuation, he or she makes it very clear that you cannot bring anything with you.

The overhead bins are locked to discourage anyone from attempting to, and the passengers are aware of it.

Anyone over the age of 18 who brings luggage off the aircraft receives a $1,000 fine, and possibly more expensive if there was a loss of life during an evacuation, and possibly charged with reckless endangerment.

The media picks up on stories of people receiving huge fines for carrying luggage of aircraft. They may never be in that situation again, but they will be made examples of to be sure people know the serious danger of bringing carry on luggage.

The aircraft involved yesterday, G-VIIO, seats 283 passengers. As I understand it there were 161 passengers and 13 crew who evacuated - If this flight was full it could have been worse if everyone was trying to get off with carry-ons.

One question that I think should be considered - what would it take to stop people retrieving carry-ons? In my view, unfortunately, I think it will be deaths because people couldn't get off. It's 30 years since the British Airtours Manchester disaster. Whilst there were a number of factors that led to the deaths of 55 of the 137 passengers and crew, the fact that once the fire resulting from the engine failure penetrated the fuselage so many were overcome by smoke and fumes was significant.

What could have happened yesterday? Well if there had been a repeat of BA28M and the fire penetrated the fuselage, smoke and fumes would have created panic and reduced visibility. People with carry-ons are suddenly carrying trip hazards - if they go down, they and their luggage are obstacles. Because of where the fire was not all exits were available - essentially everyone was heading to the front or rear. As I pointed out above, this wasn't a full flight, but a further 100 people needing to get off, and if the engine failure had happened a lot further out on the airfield meaning the fire service took longer to get there, well what could have been is frightening.

Yes, I'm using lots of maybes here, but then disasters are usually a result of lots of factors coming together in the perfect storm. Yesterday was lucky for all on board BA2276, but a slightly different combination of events could have things turn out very different. But hey, I don't think numerous close calls will change things and I suspect it will unfortunately be deaths that does.

Quoting hivue (Reply 30): There's been an orgy of ranting in this thread but no answer to these questions. Why is grabbing your carry-ons during an evacuation bad? Is it the time you take? If I have to wait 10 sec before I can get out of my seat to evac I have time to get my carry-on from under the seat in front. On the other hand, if the problem is congestion caused by people hauling all their stuff down the aisle then it needs to be left behind.

If this was true why does it take 10+ minutes to unload a 777 at a gate? Everyone is not getting their luggage at the same time. There is a cascade effect, like traffic.

Quoting brewfangrb (Reply 33): This is ridiculous. Please show me the posts where people are upset with people taking a bag from the floor in front of them. Common sense dictates we're talking about people dragging actual luggage out of overheads, etc

  

A backpack is questionable but a rollaboard is always a problem. That means you opened an overhead, which undoubtedly wasted valuable time. Just look home much time loading and unloading the overheads take. I would be in favor of fining everyone who was photographed with a suitcase that obviously came out of an overhead bin the statutory max of 25K based on a charge of interfering with crewmember instructions (14 C.F.R. §§ 91.11, 121.580, 135.120). No jail time (which I wouldn’t support and the statute doesn’t allow), but publicity of someone having to fork over 25K for getting their rollaboard of the plane might start to get it into the public sphere that taking your bag in an emergency is dangerous and might end up costing you a good chunk of change.

Apologies if this has been asked before, but...

1. What's the perceived danger about carrying a friggin' laptop, or just some really small harmless item, that one cares about?
2. Has such risk ever materialized in reality, i.e. has carrying a laptop (or small item) during evacuation actually caused any harm in the past? If not, why all the hassle?

Quoting ckfred (Reply 21): But, you would be surprised how many small business owners are road warriors. If something were to happen to them, it could very well be the end of their businesses.

If it is as you say then those people should have off site backups and should NEVER take their hand off of their laptop or whatever the important thing is. If losing one thing will be the end of your business, then that's your fault for having a single point of failure. Traveling with a laptop is risky anyway, it could be stolen, broken, damaged...so I don't think that's really fair.

I know, however, that there are always extenuating circumstances and special cases...but in general, come on now.

-IR

Anything I can't afford to lose, stays on my person. I just assume an airline will lose my stuff somehow so I don't take a chance.

One thing is for sure, if some meat head is showing down my evacuation by digging for luggage, they are getting a serious smack.

[Edited 2015-09-09 14:39:59]

THere is youtube video posted by another A.net poster on the other thread of the inside of a US A321 evacuation in DEN recently. Although no smoke was visible you could see people reaching into the overheads and the flight crew SCREAMING not to take belongings. Now going to yesterday where they all see visible flames and smoke and assuming crew screaming same thing-it seems hopeless  

Quoting deltaflyertoo (Reply 40):

Still not seeing the reason why the crew was fussing about it so much.

Any person sane in their mind would see that nothing can happen with harmless hand baggage - and nothing HAS ever happened (as nobody has answered that question so far) - so why worry?

Pure drama.

Quoting Airbus747 (Reply 37):

Quoting Airbus747 (Reply 41):

It's not "harmless hand baggage" it takes time to reach down under your seat to retrieve it. In the event of an emergency, you should be up out of your seat as soon as evacuation is ordered. If you are sitting in the window seat of a 777 with smoke filling the cabin, would you want the person sitting in the aisle seat to reach down and pick up his laptop, delaying the time it takes for YOU to evacuate the plane?

There is absolutely no reason to risk other's lives for unimportant handbaggage, ever.

[Edited 2015-09-09 15:55:30]

Quoting NYPECO (Reply 42): Any person sane in their mind would see that nothing can happen with harmless hand baggage - and nothing HAS ever happened (as nobody has answered that question so far) - so why worry?

I didn't see "hand language" in the fire yesterday-I saw full on roller bags! Clearly those had to be tossed down the shoots separately (unless someone can explain a method of combing the two, maybe holding it to your chest as you go down on your back? Oy that sounds really insane).

Quoting deltaflyertoo (Reply 43): I didn't see "hand language" in the fire yesterday-I saw full on roller bags! Clearly those had to be tossed down the shoots separately (unless someone can explain a method of combing the two, maybe holding it to your chest as you go down on your back? Oy that sounds really insane).

I would assume that they tell you not to take luggage with you for 2 reasons:

1) It increases the time it takes to evacuate the aircraft and potentially makes it a life or death situation for the person stuck behind you.
2) It increases the chance of injury when you are sliding down the chute, and potentially jeopardizes the people behind you because you might damage the chute with your heavy baggage + you (just guessing?).

-IR

Quoting bayouflyer (Reply 19): Two suggestions that I have not read on this or the incident thread: LOCK THE BINS! In case of any evacuation order, some sort of bin locking device could be activated from the flight deck or by cabin crew. This seems a pretty straightforward solution to what I see as a very serious problem. No, it would not prevent folks from grabbing their underseat or other small items, but it would discourage rummaging through bins while the plane melts around you. BayouFlyer

Locking the bins sounds like an easy fix, but that's not practicle when dealing with EOW aircraft that have flotation devices stored in the bins or other emergency equipment used by FAs. Yeah, not every A/C is an EOW. Do you condition FAs to lock the bins on one A319 variant that's a standard domestic A/C, but not an A319 EOW? They look no different except for a different safety card. 99.99+% of the time an accidentally locked bin isnt a problem, but just that one time it does, matters most. Adding an extra step for a FA to unlock a bin isnt practical. What happens if the bins or locks are damaged in an accident?

As somebody else mentioned, the likelihood of us being in an evacuation is very minimal. I've been flying for 40+ years, former airline employee, child of an airline employee, and now a FF with a few thousand flights under my belt and thankfully (knock on wood) they have all been emergency evacuation free.

I'm not sure if there is an easy way to enforce this. But anyway, don't the people get their stuff back later? Not sure if I'm missing something.

All I know is that if someone in front of me is trying to retrieve something that is slowing down the evacuation, they might sustain some injuries.

Quoting hivue (Reply 30): Why is grabbing your carry-ons during an evacuation bad? Is it the time you take? If I have to wait 10 sec before I can get out of my seat to evac I have time to get my carry-on from under the seat in front. On the other hand, if the problem is congestion caused by people hauling all their stuff down the aisle then it needs to be left behind.

Carry-on bags and other items may have sharp projections that could damage the slide. Same reason why high heels hae to be removed. I expect a few passengers on the BA flight may have ignored that rule too.

Quoting zkncj (Reply 32): Quoting Shuttle12T (Reply 1): The only way to stop this selfish practice is to start issuing heavy penalties to those caught doing it. Exactly - and the FAA should make an example out of the people that yesterday we're photographed running away from the aircraft with bags in hand.

I don't think so. People who are going to ignore rules will do it regardless of potential penalties. Look at the number of drivers who ignore speed limits. And does the risk of spending the rest of your life in prison (or the death penalty) prevent murders? Probably very few.

Quoting D L X (Reply 20): But then again, when the Ethiopian 767 went in the ocean, a whole lot of people were found to have inflated their life vests before exiting the aircraft, leading to their deaths, despite a similar warning likely having been given.

As with carryons, this is of course a very natural reflex. You need a life vest. Yo're already in excessive panic. Where is that vest? How do I put it on? This strap here? You get it on - finally! Of course you pop the vest - GOOD, now I'm prepared! Also, pax in front of you popped it as well. When you get to the exit, you realize the problem and panic even more. You can't back away and go to another exit that is wider, because people behind you push you through the window.

Quoting D L X (Reply 27): How do YOU know if the situation is terrible or not?

There are situations and there are situations. If you have an incident where one MLG goes outside the tarmac when taxying, you still need to evacuate. That's not life threatening, but it's an evac. Sure, it can be that in some other situation, you think it's nothing, and all of a sudden, something explodes or starts burning. Generally, FA's behaviour and the behaviour of other pax will give you a hint on the severity.

Quoting mcogator (Reply 28): Pertaining to departing from Las Vegas, what happens if you have a significant amount of cash in your carry on?

If you die carrying it, you still won't get to keep it. If money is more important than your and other people's lives, you really need to reconsider. There are banks, you know...

Quoting Airbus747 (Reply 37): 1. What's the perceived danger about carrying a friggin' laptop, or just some really small harmless item, that one cares about? 2. Has such risk ever materialized in reality, i.e. has carrying a laptop (or small item) during evacuation actually caused any harm in the past? If not, why all the hassle?

Valid questions, especially Q2. What does history tell us? Have people really gotten killed because too many pax took their carryons with them? Not that this should be the only criteria for rules and regulations. Lots of things are prohibited because if not, people WOULD really get killed even though it never happened in the past. But this is an interesting question, and I'd love to hear some facts.

Regarding Q1, there is an element of risk when evacing on a slide or through a window. You're going to be delayed to some degree because you need to handle the item, and that takes at least one hand. A backpack will do the same as an inflated life vest when exiting through a window, and can hook onto things like the door, seats, other pax...

Quoting EC99 (Reply 36): A backpack is questionable but a rollaboard is always a problem. That means you opened an overhead, which undoubtedly wasted valuable time.

What happened at LAS yesterday, inside the cabin? People got up, and the normal after-landing chaos was a fact (just, this wasn't a landning, but still). No pax could just jump through a closed door. FA's needed to assess the situation, decide to open their respective exit (or not) and the slides needed some time to inflate. At least one slide took 30 sec to inflate properly (aft right). During at least 10 sec, no pax could evacuate. In a perfect world, that would mean that some 50 % of the pax were able to stand up, forming some kind of line to the nearest exit. The rest couldn't possibly fit in the ailes. Now, you have some 150 pax standing up, waiting for the line to move. What do you do? My bag is a few inches from me, should I leave it? I can just grab it while I'm standing here, waiting. It doesn't take more than 3-4 sec, and the line isn't moving...

On BA2276, pax were going down the slide one each second, give or take, probably a pretty typical rate. The aft left had a stream of pax sliding down for some 60 sec. Given that 6 slides were used, you could get 360 pax out in a minute. What do you do when you're standing there, waiting for 60 sec for the line to move? 777 evac doors are wide, slides are big, you have your precious laptop and some cash in your carryon.

I'm not defending the behavior, but I think we need to start looking at the reality, not just imposing or even inventing rules that defy human nature. That will only turn most victims of aircraft incidents into criminals! I think the way to go is education. The security announcement really needs to be the next thing to improve in airline security. Why do people not listen? It's boring. It's also scaring! You don't want to hear that "if we crash and burn, or ditch into the freezing Atlantic" you need to comply with this and that. That's also human nature. We hear what we want to hear. Ah, free juice and soda. Great! Evac procedure? Say again?

/Fredrik

I always have a "go" bag when I board that has everything I will require during the flight and upon arrival. Wallet, passport, and my essential electronics. It fits in the seatback in front. I bet if put in the situation I would instinctively grab it...

I also agree with what someone said earlier about culpable state of mind. I bet out of the people who grabbed their bags more than half wouldn't consciously remember doing it and would even look at themselves funny when they realize what they have done...