Hi there,
Question for those flying 737s.
I am currently working at a new airline in South America as Supervisor for Cabin Crew.
Today one of the captains decided that all the Cabin Attendants should learn how to shut off the engines in case of an emergency landing or reject take-off, when both captains are incapacitated, before we can initiate the evacuation!!!!
I have done some research (Boeing and a friend of mine working at Continental airlines as Safety VP) and it seems that nobody in the industry is doing that (I have been flying for 18 years - mainly in Asia - and had never heard such a weird idea!). It seems that shutting off the engines is not as simple as that capt. was putting it, involving more complications.
Is anybody out there following such a procedure? Are you trained to shut off engines?????
in a word "no". I think if both pilots are dead, you are already up the creek without a paddle, I wouldn't be too concerned about shutting down engines. Having worked in the safety department, I haven't historically heard of any cases where if the cabin crew had been able to shut down the engines then more lives would have been saved, but maybe there has been..... interesting though!
I have never heard of such a question!the shut down levers are just below the thrust levers or above the engine/apu fire (red in colour) supresor butons/levers.
If you found yourself in a highly unique situation requiring cabin crew to shut down engines before an evacuation could be safely made, in almost every modern airliner type, simply look for a red, T-shaped handle in the panel above the pilots, and pull it. There is one for each engine.
I don't feel it's an unreasonable bit of knowledge to be equipt with... At all of the airline's that I've worked with, it hasn't been a set proceedure that CC are to know it, however I've always come across some Techies who have felt the need to share information with us like how to shut the engines down, how to depressurise the aircraft in order to evacuate, how to release them from their seats should they become incapacitated, how to use the radio to make a call for assistance etc etc... Its always presented as a nice to know, and in the interests of good CRM. I suppose it's the same as the techies who come out and want to know how to make their own coffee, or heat their own dinner!
Learn as much as you can I reckon! One day, it might just save your backside!
Maybe this knowledge will be used one day to save lives. Maybe one day, a sick, troubled member of cabin crew will use it in flight to commit suicide. Neither is likely, but possible non the less.
your thoughts.
The captains are right now investigating the matter and will decide later what we are going to do. However, I have contacted a friend working in the safety committee in a big airline and that item is on their list ONLY for 777 since the engines are extremely powerful even at idle.
Will let you all know what we will do.
Thanks...
I know how to shut them off but it wasn't something taught officially. Like others, pilots have taught me bits here & there that aren't part of the syllabus but 'nice to know' eg how to get out of the f/d from the inside, best thing I think CC should know about the flight deck?
They taught me
1) How to make a radio call on international distress frequency
2) How to set the autopilot to keep the a/c level, stop a climb or descent, etc
Sure it won't let me fly the plane (even though I can fly small aircraft, I'm more realistic than that!) but it's enough to get advice for sick pilots and possibly have someone talk you through programming the auto-land!!!
Many years ago I worked for an airline in EU that did teach this to CC on CRM courses. Yes it is an unlikely senario but arn't they all? Till it happens!
I think the idea being to integrate the CC into the cockpit CRM a little more so this was a good start. I have to say after hearing one of the CC say, with a 20+ year career behind her, " I always wondered what those were for" I thought it certainly had a purpose. Disemination of information is always a good thing!
Interesting concept but I suspect the regulators will see the role of the CC as evacuation only. In a LoCo B737, for example, where the cabin is served by as few as THREE CC (correct me if I'm wrong here) seems there's no room for anyone to be distracted from their primary task of evacuation to take the time to try and access the cockpit to shut down the engines - not if you want to get everyone out in 90sec or whatever it is.
Maybe it's different in the regionals where the door is close to the spinning prop blades and there's a better crew/pax ratio.
If the pilots need help shutting down, the a/c is probably in bad enough shape to have shut itself down without further action being taken...
Well the 777, 'modern' or not, is another type with the fire handles on the centre console, aft of the thrust levers.
So we now have examples of 2 different locations for fire handles and some aircraft have fire buttons and some have (sort of ) T- shaped fire handles. Probably one reason why Cabin Crew ( who often operate on more than 1 type) are not trained how to shut the engines down.
My name is Barry Courtney and I am an ex British Airways captain and I would be mortified at having my cabin crew shut down my engines,. Where are my flight crew?
I would like to add that my cabin crew , in my opinion, were more important than we drivers. The comfort and care of the passengers was much harder than drivng the machine. After all, where would we be without contented passengers. I was just a driver. The cabin crew were our hosts.
I believe that my nickname was Rambo. So I will sign off with that.
T
I would much prefer that the CC were taught how to use the radios. From that, almost everything else could be accomplished, if the pooh really hit the fan, and assuming the person to the rescue wasn't a neanderthal BASSA rep......
Procedure of Shutting down Engines by Cabin Crew
Linear Mode
