I fear the brave guy who went back up the slide did so to try to unblock a logjam of struggling bodies and baggage blocking the aisle. For some while before that the egress of pax had become slow and intermittent which bespeaks a difficulty reaching the door at all, and the two items that were all he managed to release that came down the slide look to me more like bags than bodies. He deserves a medal.
The industry must rapidly get to grips with the homicidally irrational behaviour of some pax on evacuation. Locking bins coulld be easily and relatively cheaply retrofitted and would completely solve the baggage problem, in the meantime well publicised prosecutions would not be misplaced at all. I think some people are being far too laissez-faire over such blatantly selfish action that any reasonable person can see is potentially hazardous.
It would only take a couple of people stumbling over bags at or before the lobby before others begin scrambling over them and you have an immovable Hillsborough type bottleneck-crush situation. I have little doubt that is what happened here. With no overwing exits anyone caught in or behind that would be inevitably condemned to death.
It simply must not be allowed to happen like that.
We'll look back at unlocked bins in 20 years time and marvel how they were ever permitted.
Last edited by meleagertoo; 6th May 2019 at 20:05.